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Animal profile
Steatornis caripensis
The oilbird is a nocturnal, fruit-eating relative of the nightjars, reddish-brown with white spots and a hooked bill. It roosts and nests colonially in caves, sometimes in thousands. It leaves at dusk to find fruit, mainly of palms and laurels, and can travel considerable distances in a night.
Oilbirds leave their caves after dark to pluck oil-rich palm and laurel fruit while hovering, then return before dawn. No other bird combines nocturnal habits with a diet of fruit, and they echolocate to move inside their pitch-dark roosts.
The oilbird produces bursts of audible clicks and uses the returning echoes to move through pitch-dark caves. Its echolocation is coarse compared with a bat's, resolving obstacles down to roughly a few centimetres.