Shoebill pelican
![shoebill pelican shoebill pelican](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/02/06/article-2274300-17606549000005DC-189_634x785.jpg)
![shoebill pelican shoebill pelican](https://www.factzoo.com/sites/all/img/birds/shoebill/head-shoebill.jpg)
Shoebills are large birds that can grow to nearly five feet (1.52 meters) tall. It’s loud and scary and the last sound that lots of poor monitor lizards ever hear. Shoebills are silent most of the time but engage in “bill-clattering” around the nest or when greeting another bird. So, anything cool about the bill other than that it’s gigantic, looks like footwear, and can decapitate crocodiles? Sure: It makes awesome machine-gun noises. Or “Death Pelican.” Or “Literally the Most Frightening Bird On Earth.” Of all the possible names, how on earth is it called the Shoebill? “Monsterface” would be better. It also offers up a few alternative names: Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.The shoebill stork is also known as the whalehead stork, but viewers who think this bird has a distinctly prehistoric appearance will probably prefer its scientific title: Balaeniceps rex. According to the Audubon Society, the shoebill stork is a largely silent bird, but will occasionally engage in “bill-clattering,” as shown in the video above, to greet other animals.
#SHOEBILL PELICAN LICENSE#
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License additional terms may apply. All that is known of Eremopezus is that it was a very large, probably flightless bird with a flexible foot, allowing it to handle either vegetation or prey. It has been suggested that the enigmatic African fossil bird Eremopezus was a relative too, but the evidence for that is very spurious indeed. So far, two fossil relatives of the shoebill have been described: Goliathia from the early Oligocene of Egypt and Paludavis from the Early Miocene of the same country. Shoebill or Pelican bird has a very specific behaviors, it is a bird likes to live alone and did not meet with any of his platoon Except in the mating period and then back again, solo. The Shoebill and the Hammerkop ( Scopus umbretta) are the “missing links” that connect pelicans and storks, and including the pelican lineage in the Ciconiiformes expresses this more adequately than other treatments do. Weight has reportedly ranged from 4 to 7 kg (8.8 to 15.4 lb). DNADNA hybridiza- tion data indicated that the pelicans are most closely related to the Shoebill (Balaeniceps rex), astork-like bird that lives in the. Length from tail to beak can range from 100 to 140 cm (39 to 55 in) and wingspan is 230 to 260 cm (7 ft 7 in to 8 ft 6 in). Since cormorants and relatives are probably not actually Pelecaniformes, a solution adopted by some modern authors is to merge the “core” Pelecaniformes with the Ciconiiformes. The shoebill is a tall bird, with a typical height range of 110 to 140 cm (43 to 55 in) and some specimens reaching as much as 152 cm (60 in). A recent DNA study suggests they are part of the Pelecaniformes.īut actually, the dispute has turned out to be mainly one of where to draw the boundary between Ciconiiformes and Pelecaniformes, or whether to draw it at all. More recently, the shoebill has been considered to be closer to the pelicans (based on anatomical comparisons Mayr, 2003) or the herons (based on biochemical evidence Hagey et al., 2002). Traditionally allied with the storks (Ciconiiformes), it was retained there in the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy which lumped a massive number of unrelated taxa into their “Ciconiiformes”.
![shoebill pelican shoebill pelican](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a0/b9/c1/a0b9c1ad474e5e080b0fa4f4bdb5553e.jpg)
The Shoebill is one of the bird taxa whose taxonomic treatment is murky.
![shoebill pelican shoebill pelican](http://carolinabirds.org/People/Westerinen/WesterinenXLG/Shoebill_CharlieWesterinen.jpg)
BirdLife International have classified it as Vulnerable with the main threats being habitat destruction, disturbance and hunting. The population is estimated at between 5,000 and 8,000 individuals, the majority of which live in Sudan. Shoebills feed in muddy waters, preying on fish, frogs, reptiles such as baby crocodiles, and small mammals. There are Egyptian images depicting the Shoebill, while the Arabs referred to the bird as abu markub, which means one with a shoe, a reference to the bird’s distinctive bill. However, the bird was known to both ancient Egyptians and Arabs. It was not until years later that live specimens reached the scientific community. This species was only classified in the 19th century when some skins were brought to Europe.