Daily Zoo Animal: #10, Boat-billed Heron

[urbpan]

Boat-billed heron Cochlearius cochlearius

Herons, including egrets, are instantly recognizable by their shape: their coiled necks, long wader's legs, and sharp spear-heads of bills. Except for the boat-bill. This odd-looking heron is found in the neotropics, from Mexico to Brazil. It roosts in the safety of high places in trees in the swamp by day, and hunts for small water animals by night. Because of its strange bill shape it was long assumed that it hunted in some unique way, the way that the bill shape of a flamingo, a spoonbill, or a avocet suggests its particular feeding method. One study stated that the large bill was apparently filled with nerve endings that helped the nocturnal bird catch shrimp and fish in the muddy mangroves. A few years later another study claimed that the boat-bill feeds on the same prey in the same areas as the yellow-crowned night-heron, with the large bill serving no unique feeding function. Perhaps the boat-bill's courtship displays, full-contact bill clattering, explains the adaptive purpose of this bird's strange appearance.

This boat-billed heron is in the swamp exhibit in the Bird's World building in Franklin Park Zoo. I was trying to take pictures of other birds (who wouldn't stop moving) for 10 minutes before I noticed it perched on a high platform.

On this day in 365 Urban Species: Leopard slug, another favorite.