About Porphyrio flavirostris (Gmelin, 1789)
The azure gallinule (Porphyrio flavirostris) measures 23 to 26 cm (9.1 to 10 in) in length. Males weigh 92 to 111 g (3.2 to 3.9 oz), while females weigh 92 to 107 g (3.2 to 3.8 oz). It is the smallest species in its genus and has distinctly different plumage from other members of the genus. The plumage of males and females is identical. Adults have a pale greenish yellow bill and frontal shield, and yellow legs and feet. Their crown, hindneck, and back are a pale brownish olive. Their upperwing coverts range in color from azure to greenish blue, their flight feathers are gray-blue, and their uppertail coverts and tail are brownish olive to black. Their face, sides of the neck, and breast are pale blue-gray, and all other underparts are white. Immature birds have browner upperparts than adults, with buffy face, neck, and breast; their frontal shield is green, and their legs and feet are yellowish orange.
The azure gallinule is distributed across Trinidad and Tobago; an area extending from Venezuela south through Colombia and Ecuador into northern Peru; an area extending from Venezuela east through the Guianas into Brazil; Amazonian Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, and far northern Argentina; and the eastern Brazilian states of Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro. It has also been recorded as a vagrant in Uruguay. It primarily lives in freshwater marshes with fairly deep water and abundant marsh grass and other vegetation. It can also be found in rice paddies, wet savanna, the margins of swampy streams and rivers, and both permanent and seasonal ponds. Although it often shares habitat with the purple gallinule (P. martinica), it prefers areas with shorter vegetation and no bushes. It typically occurs at elevations below 500 m (1,600 ft), but has been recorded as high as 2,600 m (8,500 ft) in the Colombian Andes.
