The cuckoos, together with the roadrunners and touracos are placed in the order Cuculiformes, and about 160 birds belong to this order. Ornithologists argue about whether or not these two groups are sufficiently different to be placed in two orders of their own. To complicate matters further, a strange bird called the hoatzin is often also placed in this order. Cuckoos are found throughout the world, but touracos only live in African forests and woodland.
Hoatzins live in the rainforests of South America.
The greater roadrunner Geococcyx californianus is found in the western and southwestern USA down to Mexico. Well-known from its duels with the wily coyote in the 'Roadrunner' cartoons, this fascinating bird can run at speeds of up to 12 miles per hour, and occasionally kills and eats small rattlesnakes. The roadrunner more commonly eats scorpions, tarantula spiders, small mammals and lizards. Roadrunners cope with the hostile desert environment by allowing their bodies to cool slightly in the cold nights, warming up in the morning by exposing dark patches on their backs to the sun. The hoatzin Opisthocomus hoatzin lives in the rainforests of the Amazon basin.