© 2016 Tune In to November 2016 Narrator: Mary McCannĬURWOOD: Swoop on over to our website, LOE.org, for some pictures. XC320901 ambient sounds recorded by James Bradley, Kenyan Swamp setting.īirdNote’s theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler. Shoebills are notably less numerous than pelicans, though, with only 8,000 surviving in the wild.īird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. But DNA analysis showed that it’s more closely related to pelicans - another group of birds whose oversized beaks are truly awe-inspiring. The Shoebill’s physical resemblance to the stork gave it its early name, the Whale-headed Stork. Shoebills resemble storks, but are more closely related to pelicans. Its wings are held flat while soaring and, as in the pelicans and the storks of the genus Leptoptilos, the shoebill flies with its neck retracted. Which Shoebills hunt in the shallows, often standing completely motionless before they strike. When left alone, Shoebills can often be seen fishing, catching. They are often seen shaking their large, strange beaks. These intimidating looking birds are actually surprisingly timid, and will take wing when attacked. This means that gulper eels don’t need to use any energy to stay in place, and can save it up for lunging at prey. Another adaptation to the murky depths is the reduction of muscle and skeletal, which helps the eel better match the density of the water. The edges are sharp enough to behead its prey, which include catfish with hard bony heads as well as lungfish, snakes, and even baby crocodiles. Shoebills (Balaeniceps Rex) are majestic, pelican-like birds found in swamps. They have reduced skeletons and musculature. But although the Shoebill looks like it walked right out of a cartoon, its beak is no joke. So named because that comically large bill is, yellow-orange, and shaped like an oversized Dutch wooden shoe. Meet the Shoebill, a bird unknown to science until the 19th Century, and the only living member of its family. It stands at the unnerving average height of four and a half feet with an eight-foot wingspan, and its seven-inch beak can tear through a six-foot lungfish with ease. The shoebill, or Balaeniceps rex, is undoubtedly one of the scariest-looking birds on the planet. But instead of the stork’s long, tapered bill, substitute a prodigious, stout bill that’s hooked at the tip – and that gives this bird its name. In fact, its the third largest beak among all living birds behind pelicans and large storks They also have an impressive wing span of over 8 feet long but is. Nik Borrow/Flickr The shoebill is aptly named, as its beak resembles a Dutch clog. This shoebill, in particular, is still in its youth. Picture a massive, blue-gray stork, standing up to five feet tall on long, gray legs. On an SBS program, zookeepers were should trying to appease a living dinosaur the shoebill pelican. MCCANN: Deep in the dense, remote swamps of Central Africa lives one of the most peculiar looking of all birds. And periodically, as Mary McCann points out in today's BirdNote®, there are birds that are – well – downright weird. What seems abundantly clear when you see this four foot tall bird is that its relationship to non-avian dinosaurs is obvious.CURWOOD: Birds come in all shapes and sizes, with feathers drab or colorful – and voices melodious or grating. Using genetic and genomic data, it now seems that their closest relatives may be pelicans. Shoebills were commonly called shoebill storks since it was difficult to determine their closest avian relatives with all the unique and unusual features they possess. It was even more special to watch it snatch up a catfish and then take its time softening it before swallowing it in a large gulp. We were all delighted to find this individual out in the open and seemingly posing for our photos. So far, two fossil relatives of the shoebill have been described. While not rare birds, they can be difficult to spot as they occur in relatively low densities among thick stands of papyrus in meandering waterways and marshes. The Shoebill is a very large stork-like bird, which mainly lives in swamps in Sudan, Uganda, eastern Zaire and Zambia. 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. We had been on safari for about two weeks when my wife Amanda and I, along with our friends, boarded a small boat on the Victoria Nile in Uganda to specifically go looking for shoebills ( Balaeniceps rex). The rivalry between two shoebill chicks becomes apparent when their mother leaves to fetch water.Taken from Africa.Subscribe to BBC Earth. Birds ApA Connection to Dinosaurs - as seen by - George Amato
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