The great lizard cuckoo is the largest of the lizard-cuckoos of the Caribbean and the largest species of Coccyzus cuckoo. It is 54 cm (21 in) in length and weighs around 155 g (5.5 oz). The plumage is similar to that of the other lizard-cuckoos: olive-brown backs, wings and crown, white throat and breast and chestnut belly with a deeply barred undertail. The eye has a patch of bare red skin around it, and the bill is long.
This species feeds on lizards and insects such as locusts. Unlike some cuckoos, it raises its own young, nesting in a saucer of twigs and laying two to three eggs.
Its natural habitats are tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests, lowland and montane tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, and heavily degraded former forest.
