Clap your hands in front of the ancient Pyramid of Kukulkan at Chichen Itza, Mexico, and an odd echo replies. It's a quick, descending tone that might ring a bell in your memory—if you have ever heard a resplendent quetzal bird's call. The fast-disappearing quetzal lives in shrinking mountain forest areas of Central America and Mexico, hundreds of miles from the Mayan temple. Yet its long, blue-green tail feathers adorned the helmets and robes of the kings of the Mayan people across a region stretching from present-day El Salvador through the state of Tabasco in Mexico.
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