potoo

potoo (poh-TOO) - n., any of several large, nocturnal, solitary birds (genus Nyctibius) related to the nightjars of Central and South America, with patterned gray, brown, and black plumage.



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Also called poor-me-ones, after their haunting calls. We got the name in the 1840s from Jamaican English patoo, apparently from a West-African language, possibly Twi, where patú means owl.

---L.