Shoebills, sibling rivalry and eating baby crocodiles
Updated: Feb 1, 2021
They are probably the most terrifying bird you will ever see. Towering over 1 metre tall, and with eyes that glare into your soul, this week's Wacky Wednesday animal is the Shoebill. In addition to their strange association to a Korean boy band, the Shoebill has a firm spot as number 1 on the 'Top 5 birds-to-see-in-Africa' list. Find out why they capture so many people’s interest below...
Quick Facts:
Scientific name: Balaeniceps rex (Latin meaning = ‘whale head’)
Geographic location: tropical east Africa
Distinguishing feature: Broad bill and grey mosaic feathers
Conservation status: Vulnerable
Shoebills are, in my opinion, one of the closest reminders that we walk amongst relatives of dinosaurs. In addition to being picked first for the basketball team, Shoebills have an enormous wingspan reaching up to 300 cm (over 8ft) wide. Whilst they don’t fly very far, perhaps 100-metres each trip, they have one of the slowest flap rates of all birds at just 150 flaps per minute.
They typically live in swampy floodplains so they can use aquatic plants for their nests, as well as catch lungfish, catfish and other prey. People have reported seeing Shoebills eat much bigger prey too, including eels, monitor lizards, snakes, and baby crocodiles!
To catch prey they will stand extremely still and collapse onto their prey, beak first. Their beak is keeled, meaning it curves to a sharp point at its tip. This shape can also help them scoop lungfish from their burrows if necessary.
During the mating season, Shoebills use plants such as papyrus to craft a gigantic 1 to 1.7-metre wide nest which they will lay 1 to 3 eggs in. After incubating for 30 days, the chicks will hatch and rely entirely on their mother for food and water until they learn to walk. Since mothers only care for the largest and healthiest chick, the remaining chicks are abandoned and attacked. See the video below to hear David Attenborough narrate one such occurrence of this.
Evidence from petroglyphs suggests that Shoebills have been present since the Early Holocene (over 10,000 years ago)! They are not typically aggressive towards humans but are extremely sensitive to nearby human activity. Shoebills have been known to abandon their nests if disturbed. They are now classed as Vulnerable due to only being between 5,000 and 8,000 remaining in the wild.
To read more about how we can reduce our impact on the Shoebill, go here.
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