Colophon

The animal on the cover of Technology Strategy Patterns is the sharpbill (Oxyruncus cristatus). This small, stocky songbird lives in the tall, dense rainforests of Panama, Costa Rica, and parts of Brasil, Columbia, and other regions of Tropical South America. The bird gets its name from its conical, pointed beak.

The sharpbill is colored olive-green on the back and tailfeathers with an orange-red crest. The underside is yellow with black polka-dots. It eats fruit, occasionally supplemented by insects. With toes well-suited to perching, it can hang upside down to catch insects and their larvae.

The male has a larger, erect crest and a loud, buzzing song that descends from high to low in pitch. Until 1980, when the first sharpbill nest was discovered, little was known about this bird’s habits. The sharpbill is polygamous, with males traveling in groups (leks) to vie for the females’ attention during mating season.

Many of the animals on O’Reilly covers are endangered; all of them are important to the world. To learn more about how you can help, go to animals.oreilly.com.

The cover illustration is by Karen Montgomery, based on a black-and-white engraving from Shaw’s General Zoology. The cover fonts are URW Typewriter and Guardian Sans. The text font is Adobe Minion Pro; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is Dalton Maag’s Ubuntu Mono.