Male Resplendent Quetzal

Resplendent Quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno). Taken at San Gerardo de Dota, Costa Rica at the Quetzal Education Research Station operated the the Biology Department of Southern Nazarene University, Bethany Oklahoma. This male is sitting in an aguacatillo, a wild avocado tree, (lauraceae) its favorite food. They are frugiverous swallowing the fruit whole and later regurgitating the large seed. They are in the montane cloud forest between Panama and Southern Mexico. Most of the time when you find them it is raining and they love to perch protected in the canopy of the trees -- not much light.

Costa Rica's Biodiversity Law, proclaimed winner of the Future Policy Award for 2010.

Monday morning (October 25, 2010) in Nagoya, Japan, Costa Rica was presented the World Future Council's Future Policy Award 2010 for its biodiversity law at the UN Biodiversity Conference. This quetzal picture was chosen for the large poster for the backdrop behind Shoichi Kondo. worldfuturecouncil.org- I was asked to provide the picture of the quetzal so that they could make large posters for the ceremony. I was a bit surprised to see the size of it. The same picture was used in their brochures, both long and short. Just thought you might want to see how one of QERC's quetzals made good!

When H.E. Ambassador Mario Fernandez Silva(Costa Rican Ambassador to Japan) accepted the award, see : www.worldfuturecouncil.org-fileadmin-user_upload-Pictures...

Other photos of the day: www.iisd.ca-biodiv-cop10-25oct-photo.html

This photo has a lot of green in it, but then again this is where quetzals love to hang out. It's in the canopy of a tree with the fruit that it loves to eat.
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