Roadrunners are in the cuckoo bird family, with only two species in their genus (Geococcyx) – the Lesser Roadrunner, found in Mexico and Latin America, known as Xtuntun-kinil to the Maya, and the Greater Roadrunner, found in northern Mexico and the southwestern USA, including a small part of southeastern Colorado.*
Roadrunners can run 15 mph, possibly even faster when chasing prey – speedy little ground lizards and snakes. They can kill rattlesnakes by grabbing them with their long, sharp beaks and then beating them against rocks. They are also known to leap straight up in the air to pluck hummingbirds out of the sky! They eat a diet of about 90% meat, which allows them to absorb moisture from their prey, a handy adaptation to life in the desert. They also eat seeds and cactus flowers.
Another adaptation of the roadrunner is to use a patch of black skin on its back to thermoregulate during the steep swings in temperature that the desert has from night to day. Roadrunners sun themselves in the morning by opening their wings to expose this black patch and draw in more heat from the sun. In the winter, they can do this for several hours per day. Roadrunners also pant and have several other physiological adaptations to keep themselves hydrated and at a good temperature.
The earliest known roadrunner fossils are around 33,000 years old, from the Ice Age, when the region they lived in was forested scrubland rather than the desert it became as the climate warmed. Roadrunner skeletons have even been found in the La Brea Tar Pits!
Roadrunners are charismatic and feature in many stories and legends from Mexico and the Southwest. I was pleased to wake up to one standing on my windowsill in Tucson a few years ago! The Lesser Roadrunner had his feathers stolen by the Quetzal bird in Maya legend (you will not look at a Quetzal the same way after you read how mean he was to the Roadrunner!). As for the Greater Roadrunner, an Apache tale describes him becoming the Leader of the Birds. The Yokut people of southern California credit the Greater Roadrunner with acquiring fire, although it burned him while carrying it home, leaving the red spots still visible behind the eyes on every roadrunner.
*Occasionally roadrunners are seen further north and west in Mesa County but scientists believe these are outliers who are far beyond normal roadrunner range.