Big Bluestem vs Cock-tailed Tyrant

Andropogon gerardi compared with Alectrurus tricolor

Key Differences

Big Bluestem is Not Evaluated while Cock-tailed Tyrant is Vulnerable.

Taxonomic Classification

Rank	Big Bluestem	Cock-tailed Tyrant
Kingdom	Plantae (Plants)	Animalia (Animals)
Phylum	Magnoliophyta (Flowering Plants)	Chordata (Chordates)
Class	Liliopsida (Monocots)	Aves (Birds)
Order	Poales (Grasses)	Passeriformes (Songbirds)
Family	Poaceae (Grass Family)	Tyrannidae
Genus	Andropogon	Alectrurus
Species	Andropogon gerardi	Alectrurus tricolor

Conservation Status

Big Bluestem

NE — Not Evaluated

Cock-tailed Tyrant

VU — Vulnerable

Physical Characteristics

Attribute	Big Bluestem	Cock-tailed Tyrant
Diet	—	—
Average Lifespan	—	—
Average Length	—	—
Average Weight	—	—

Habitat & Geographic Range

Big Bluestem

Habitat

Typically found in grasslands, wetlands, forests, and cultivated landscapes.

Range

Distributed across Bhutan, Canada, France, Sweden, and United States.

Cock-tailed Tyrant

Habitat

Typically found in various aerial, terrestrial, and aquatic environments.

Range

Found in Norway. Currently classified as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, this species faces significant conservation challenges across its range.

Big Bluestem

The Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardi) is a species in the genus Andropogon. Typically found in grasslands, wetlands, forests, and cultivated landscapes.

The cock-tailed tyrant (Alectrurus tricolor) is a striking and unusual flycatcher in the family Tyrannidae, named for the remarkable elongated, spatula-shaped outer tail feathers of the male, which can exceed the body length and are displayed during aerial courtship flights over open grasslands. The species inhabits wet and seasonally flooded grasslands, cerrado savanna, and campos in the interior of South America, including central Brazil, eastern Bolivia, Paraguay, and northeastern Argentina — not Norway, as erroneous database entries suggest. Males combine conspicuous black, white, and rufous plumage with their extraordinary tail streamers in an elaborate display to attract females on leks; females are cryptically streaked brown. The cock-tailed tyrant is a ground- and low-vegetation forager, preying on insects and other small invertebrates gleaned from grass stems and caught in aerial sallies. The species is classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN due to extensive and continuing conversion and degradation of its native Neotropical grassland habitat through intensive soy and sugarcane agriculture, cattle ranching, fire management changes, and drainage of seasonally flooded grasslands. Populations have declined significantly across much of its range, particularly in Brazil and Paraguay. The species is a flagship for threatened grassland conservation in South America, where relatively little protection has historically been directed at open-country habitats compared to forest ecosystems.