Shoebills are monogamous and mate with the same partner each year. Once it is secure they swing the bill from side to side till they dislodge items such as vegetation and are left with just the prey. Once it does they lunge forward and place the fish in their bill. To catch food they will stand still and wait for prey to swim by. These birds can go up to four days without a meal. These are supplemented with prey ranging from small snakes, rodents, frogs, turtles and birds up to monitor lizards and crocodiles. Most of their diet is fish such as lungfish and tilapia. The eye is coloured yellow or whitish-grey. These legs end with large toes that help walk through their marshy habitat.īoth genders display similar colouration. They stand atop long legs which are bare of feathers and coloured black. On top of the head is a short crest of feathers which is always held erect. Their feathers are a uniform grey or bluish grey across the head, body, wings and head. well, kind of normal (although maybe a little goofy).The most noticeable feature of the shoebill is the clog-shaped bill which is pointed and hooked at the end. As it turns out, newly-hatched shoebills look. In 2009 the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, Florida was only the second zoo in the world to successfully hatch a baby shoebill. You must be wondering what baby shoebills look like. Adult shoebills are certainly strange-looking birds. They seem to do it most when they are around their nests, although the specific purpose of the sound is uncertain. This is a common form of communication between the birds. If you watch videos of a shoebill, you will see and hear it clacking its bill loudly (you can see this in the above video). Shoebills in zoos seem to like it when approaching people mimic their movements, including bowing to the bird.Ĭheck out this video of these behaviors in a shoebill in captivity. They actually seem quite tolerant of people (although you have to admit. I'm not implying that shoebills are ill-tempered or dangerous to people. Um, is it me, or does the shoebill look a little like the long-lost dodo bird?ĭon't get me wrong. How does it work? Well, bird poop is mostly liquid, and when the poop evaporates, it cools the blood circulating through the shoebill's legs, and that cooled blood cools the rest of the bird's body. Shoebills live in hot places, and to help cool themselves down, they poop on their legs. Sorry, but this part is a little disgusting. Gulp.īut wait! Even though the bird has eaten its prey, it isn't quite finished with it yet. So, it grabs a mouthful of stuff, shakes out everything else except for the prey animal, then it often maneuvers the animal around until it can decapitate it with its sharp-edged bill. Yep, this is a bird that eats crocodiles. As if that weren't impressive enough, they do not hesitate to eat monitor lizards, snakes, and even young crocodiles. This includes not only surprisingly large lungfish, but also eels, catfish, and frogs. They are particularly fond of lungfish (see above photo), but they will eat pretty much any creature they can swallow whole. I mentioned above that shoebills eat an impressive list of prey. Shoebills live in central and eastern Africa, and they eat an impressive variety of prey. Shoebills are taller than a mailbox, sometimes standing five feet (152 cm) tall, with an 8-foot wingspan! Anyway, they're a big, impressive-looking bird. just try to pronounce that one).Īpparently, the shoebill's closest living relative is another odd-looking bird called the hamerkop. Because of all this confusion, the bird has been placed in its own special family (called Balaenicipitidae. But then, molecular studies have convinced many scientists that it is actually more closely related to herons. However, anatomical studies (looking at the structure) suggest it is more closely related to pelicans. For years it used to be classified as one of the storks. Figuring out exactly what the shoebill is has been an ongoing challenge. This bird is sometimes called the shoe-billed stork, or the whalehead. Sometimes my reasons are not particularly intellectual. I saw a photo of a Shoebill, and I thought, look at that crazy bill! That's it. usually I explain why I chose the particular animal as the Awesome Animal.
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