Greater roadrunner of New Mexico. Greater roadrunner The greater roadrunner ("Geococcyx californianus") is a long-legged bird in the cuckoo family, Cuculidae, from Southwestern United States and Mexico. The Latin name means "Californian earth-cuckoo". Along with the lesser roadrunner, it is one of two species in the roadrunner genus "Geococcyx". This roadrunner is also known as the chaparral cock, ground cuckoo, and snake killer. The roadrunner is about long, has a wingspan and weighs . It stands around tall and is the largest cuckoo of the Americas. Roadrunners have four toes on each zygodactyl foot; two face forward, and two face backward. The
Cuckoo to its wintering grounds in Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia, a feat described as "perhaps the most remarkable overwater migration of any land bird." The yellow-billed cuckoo and black-billed cuckoo breed in North America and fly across the Caribbean Sea, a non-stop flight of 4000 km. Other long migration flights include the lesser cuckoo, which flies from Africa to India, and the common cuckoo of Europe, which flies non-stop over the Mediterranean Sea and Sahara Desert on the voyage between Europe and central Africa. Within Africa, ten species make regular intra-continental migrations that are described as polarised; that is, they spend