Contrary to our early schooling from Looney Tunes, a roadrunner, no matter how clever, cannot outrun and escape the jaws of a hungry coyote. While this speedy bird can zip along at bursts of 20 mph—third only to the ostrich, at 43 and the emu, at 30—a coyote can clock 40 mph.
Had Wile E. Coyote been replaced by a rattlesnake, however, the cartoon might ring truer, but with roles reversed: roadrunners outsmart and dine upon snakes. A rattlesnake devours a roadrunner only if it somehow foils the bird’s wily attack.
A roadrunner will take on a two-foot rattler but may collaborate with a partner to subdue a larger one. The roadrunner may circle the serpent, jumping and flapping its wings, and then, with hooked bill, hammer its head. The bird swings the serpent around, accelerating, then slamming it about 21 times a minute—while a nicitating membrane, or translucent “third eye”, like safety glasses, coats its eyes. In tandem, one roadrunner may distract the snake, bending down, head lowered, while the other sneaks up, pinning its head. Then, together, they peck or batter its head on a rock. A roadrunner digests a long snake one portion at a time, with a tail dangling from its mouth.
With this bird’s spunk, no wonder cartoonist Chuck Jones—inspired by a description of the coyote in Mark Twain’s “Roughing’ It”—chose it as the unflappable hero of the 26 roadrunner cartoons he directed.
Folklore and superstitions about these creatures abound. Since the roadrunner—like others in the cuckoo family—is zygodactyl, or has two paired toes, its footprint resembles an X. According to noted Texas folklorist J. Frank Dobie, Pueblo tribe members drew X-shaped tracks near a corpse to befuddle evil spirits about which way its soul was headed.
Occurring throughout Texas, the greater roadrunner is easy to spot, especially along pathways and roads. I often see roadrunners at Laguna Atascosa or Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park– perched in a tree, on the bike path, running along the grounds or strolling around the visitor center.
Tales of roadrunners’ puzzling deeds are legend, and, of course, roadrunner logic—mysterious to us— governs them all. Palo Alto Park Guides Ruben Reyna and Vincent Gonzalez noted a roadrunner tapping on a vehicle’s mirror, as well the center’s glass doors. They watched one repeatedly climb a wall in vain pursuit of a tarantula, then fall splat as if to say, “Where’s the spider?” In the Davis Mountains, Sandra Mink of Harlingen watched this scene play out repeatedly: a roadrunner dropped from his perch on a branch, accosting baby foxes below, who, in turn, chased the bird up the tree. Was it protecting a nest?
The greater roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus) has several names: chaparral cock, snake-killer, medicine bird and, endearingly, paisano, Spanish for fellow-traveler. Its smaller cousin, the lesser roadrunner, occupies Mexico and Central America.
The greater roadrunner’s diet is broad, including rodents, lizards, snakes, small birds, bats, snails, eggs, carrion and plant matter like prickly pear pads from which it extracts spines. It sometimes overturns dried mud plates with its bill, scouring for insects. It habitually runs, then stands, scanning a scene. It rushes at prey, head lowered, and it pounds mammals’ skulls and snails upon rocks. A roadrunner drinks water if available but derives most moisture from prey.
To alleviate heat, it may gape into powerful winds and engage in gular (throat) fluttering or panting. Like some seabirds, it excretes excess salt through a gland near its eyes. And it reabsorbs water through the mucous of its rectum, ceca (a nearby sac) and cloaca (a digestive and reproductive opening). Also, it avoids hunting at mid-day.
Roadrunners generally mate for life, and couples forage and defend territories together. Pairs engage in various mating rituals—tail-wagging, bowing, lifting heads, prancing, feigning escape—and the male usually offers his mate a lizard, snake, grasshopper or nesting material. Devoted parents, they share childcare duties while raising two broods each year. The breeding male—whose body temperature, unlike that of females and nonbreeding males, remains consistent —does nighttime duty. Males gather most material for their stick nests, which the female assembles in bushes, cacti, horizontal boughs or tree crotches. Foraging alongside, parents teach fledglings to hunt, then gently scoot them off into the world.
A roadrunner, rarely flying and preferring clearcut paths, races along with head and tail parallel. Its tail, rudder-like, wags from side-to-side. Its calls vary from coos—some short, others in descending slurs—whines, growl coos, whirs and barks.
Roadrunners, for now, are thriving and expanding northward and eastward despite human encroachment and traffic accidents. Still, we must monitor them, assuring they have ample habitat. Significantly, they tend to abandon nests when disturbed, even by cautious researchers. Also, populations in southern California have declined for the past few decades.