Diet and Foraging

The Squirrel Cuckoo is primarily insectivorous. Little data; documented prey includes caterpillars (including caterpillars with stinging "hairs"), walking sticks, grasshoppers, beetles, wasps, bees, large ants, cicadas, hemipteras, odonates, unidentified insects, and spiders (Todd and Carriker 1922, Dickey and van Rossem 1938, Blake and Hanson 1942, Schubart et al. 1965, Skutch 1966, Haverschmidt 1968, Wetmore 1968). They also take small lizards (Wetmore 1968) and some small fruit (Blake and Hanson 1942). Cintra and Sanaiotti (1990) observed a Squirrel Cuckoo capture and kill a tree frog (Osteocephalus taurinus); this frog was not consumed and was abandoned, possibly because it was too large (10 cm), but this observation suggests that Squirrel Cuckoos would eat smaller frogs. Squirrel Cuckoos also are suspected of taking bird eggs (e.g. Gibbs 1991), but it is not clear if this behavior has been observed directly.