![]() ![]() Now if only someone could arrange a meeting between Futaba-chan and the bowing deer of Nara, to help make the world an even more polite/adorable place. “Making sure to say good-morning to the cleaning staff…how courteous of her!” wrote one of the many people impressed by the bird’s etiquette. The fact that Futaba-chan’s way of resembles the respectful bowing that takes place in the morning at Japanese offices and schools has made the whole thing all the more endearing to Japanese online commenters. Basically, it’s their version of a warmhearted hello, and just out of frame is a member of Kakegawa Kachouen’s cleaning staff, who’s getting a courteous morning greeting from Futaba-chan at the start of the workday. At first it looks like she might be trying to nibble on the leaves of the plants directly in front of her, but she never takes a bite, because this whole display is actually for someone on the other side of the fence.įutaba-chan’s behavior, the clattering and bowing, is how shoebills attempt to attract mates or communicate with other shoebills they have a friendly relationship with. As she gets closer to the fence, she spreads her wings and bows her head multiple times. It's a masterful hunter and endangered species, but it's also a frightening creature to the inhabitants of the lands it occupies. It has been suggested that the enigmatic African fossil bird Eremopezus was a relative too, but the evidence for that is very spurious indeed.Īll 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.In a video recently shared on Kakegawa Kachouen’s Facebook page, we see Futaba-chan emerging from the back of her habitat and clattering her bill. The shoebill bird is native to the marshes of East Africa. Paludavis from the Early Miocene of the same country.Goliathia from the early Oligocene of Egypt and.So far, two fossil relatives of the shoebill have been described: 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. 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. A recent DNA study suggests they are part of the Pelecaniformes (a possibly invalid order of medium-sized and large waterbirds found worldwide)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”. The Shoebill is one of the bird taxa whose taxonomic treatment is murky. Shoebills feed in muddy waters, preying on fish, frogs, reptiles, such as baby crocodiles, insects and small mammals. 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. It lives in tropical east Africa in large swamps from Sudan to Zambia. ![]() The adult is mainly grey while the juveniles are browner. It derives its name from its massive shoe-shaped bill. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |