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The eight living pelican species were traditionally divided into two groups, one containing four ground-nesters with mainly white adult plumage (Australian, Dalmatian, great white, and American white pelicans), and one containing four grey- or brown-plumaged species which nest preferentially either in trees (pink-backed, spot-billed and brown ...
Reviewing genetic evidence to date, Cracraft and colleagues surmised that pelicans were sister to the shoebill with the hamerkop as the next earlier offshoot. [7] Ericson and colleagues sampled five nuclear genes in a 2006 study spanning the breadth of bird lineages, and came up with pelicans, shoebill and hamerkop in a clade. [8]
The Peruvian pelican (Pelecanus thagus) is a member of the pelican family. It lives on the west coast of South America, breeding in loose colonies from about 33.5 degrees south in central Chile to Piura in northern Peru, and occurring as a visitor in southern Chile and Ecuador. [2] It used to be considered a subspecies of the brown pelican.
The great white pelican was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the current binomial name Pelecanus onocrotalus. [2] [3] The species is treated as monotypic: no subspecies are recognised. [4] The specific epithet onocrotalus is Latin meaning "pelican". [5]
This huge bird is by a slight margin the largest of the pelican species and one of the largest living flying bird species. It measures 160 to 183 cm (5 ft 3 in to 6 ft 0 in) in length, 7.25–15 kg (16.0–33.1 lb) in weight and 245 to 351 cm (8 ft 0 in to 11 ft 6 in) in wingspan.
American white pelicans gathering at Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge in Florida. Brown pelicans can also be seen in the center, and at the left and right margins. With wings spread, showing black remiges. The American white pelican rivals the trumpeter swan, with a similar overall length, as one of the longest birds native to North ...
This page was last edited on 6 November 2024, at 02:20 (UTC).; Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License; additional terms may apply.
The brown pelican is the smallest of the eight extant pelican species, but is often one of the larger seabirds in their range nonetheless. [15] [16] It measures 1 to 1.52 m (3 ft 3 in to 5 ft 0 in) in length and has a wingspan of 2.03 to 2.28 m (6 ft 8 in to 7 ft 6 in). [6]