Despite this, several individuals have been rescued from captivity to be reintroduced into the wild. The beauty of this bird lies in its round, dark eyes lending it a serene air, a budding crest crowning its head ending with a small, intense yellow beak, and above all, a spectacular plumage resplendent and colorful in the male, displaying iridescent shades of red on the belly, orange, yellow, blue, and emerald green across the rest of its body, and in the spectacular four-feather tail measuring up to a meter long, revealing sexual dimorphism.
The female exhibits duller green and gray colors with no long feathers in the tail. Though the flight of this beautiful bird leaves one speechless, the cloud forests, the quetzal’s distribution areas, are increasingly shrinking, posing a problem for its population.
The Beautiful Flight of a Quetzal
Quetzals were one of the most revered species among Mesoamerican communities. Presently, they are an endangered species; however, several individuals can still be spotted. According to Mauricio Ruíz Velasco, from the Institute of Philological Research at UNAM, the Mexicas associated the bird with the deity Quetzalcóatl, while in Mayan culture, its counterpart was Kukulkán.
The deity was linked to the sun and the sky, also associated with freedom. The latter, because they cannot live in captivity, as they stop eating until they die, explains why quetzals in captivity are at greater risk and how they form a unique flight in the sky among the mists.
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