Red-legged seriema Red-legged seriema The red-legged seriema ("Cariama cristata"), or crested cariama, is a mostly predatory terrestrial bird in the seriema family (Cariamidae), included in the Gruiformes in the old paraphyletic circumscription, but increasingly placed in a distinct order Cariamiformes (along with three extinct families). The red-legged seriema inhabits grasslands from Brazil south of the Amazon to Uruguay and northern Argentina. The area over which it occurs is estimated at 5.9 million km², though the bird is not found everywhere in this region of course. The species is absent from the Mata Atlântica and planalto uplands along the coast of Brazil. Unlike
Black-legged seriema as lizards and snakes. They supplement this diet with some plant material, too. They have a large, curved, and hyperextensible claw on the second digit of each hind foot. This claw resembles that of the ancient troodontidae dinosaurs, such as "Stenonychosaurus". If a piece of food is too large to be swallowed whole, the seriema will cut it apart with the sickle-claw. This claw is also used to kill prey, and climb trees. Farmers in South America often capture young seriemas from the wild, and tame them. They are then trained to guard the farm against potential predators, such as