The Rufous-vented Chachalaca, Ortalis ruficauda, is a member of an ancient group of birds of the Cracidae

Cracidae

The chachalacas, guans and curassows are birds in the family Cracidae.These are species of tropical and subtropical Central and South America. One species, the Plain Chachalaca, just reaches southernmost Texas in the USA...

 family, which are related to the Australasia

Australasia

Australasia is a region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term was coined by Charles de Brosses in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes...

n mound builders. It inhabits northeast Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

 and northern Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

 where it is called Guacharaca, and in Tobago

Tobago

Tobago is the smaller of the two main islands that make up the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is located in the southern Caribbean, northeast of the island of Trinidad and southeast of Grenada. The island lies outside the hurricane belt...

 where it is known as the Cocrico and is the island's national bird. It is also found on Bequia

Bequia

Bequia is the largest island in the Grenadines. It is part of the country of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and is approximately 15 km from the nation's capital, Kingstown.-Geography:The island capital is Port Elizabeth...

 and Union Island

Union Island

Union Island is part of the nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. It the southernmost island of the Grenadines. It lies 90 kilometers southwest of Barbados and is within view of the islands of Carriacou and the mainland of Grenada, which lie directly south.Clifton and Ashton are the two...

 in the Grenadines

Grenadines

The Grenadines is a Caribbean island chain of over 600 islands in the Windward Islands.-Geographic boundaries:They are divided between the island nations of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada. They lie between the islands of Saint Vincent in the north and Grenada in the south. Neither...

 where it may have been introduced

Introduced species

An introduced species — or neozoon, alien, exotic, non-indigenous, or non-native species, or simply an introduction, is a species living outside its indigenous or native distributional range, and has arrived in an ecosystem or plant community by human activity, either deliberate or accidental...

.

Rufous-vented Chachalaca is a largely arboreal species found in forest and woodland, but it is also found in more open dry scrubby areas.