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The shoebill (Balaeniceps rex), also known as the whale-headed stork, and shoe-billed stork, is a large long-legged wading bird. It derives its name from its enormous shoe-shaped bill . It has a somewhat stork -like overall form and has previously been classified with the storks in the order Ciconiiformes based on this morphology.
The shoebill is the sole extant species and its closest relative is the hamerkop (Scopus umbretta), which belongs to another family. Species from the Ciconiiformes and Balaenicipitidae family have been found in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and parts of East Africa. It has the following genera: Balaeniceps [1] [2]
The same colony was revisited in 1944, and was found to have about 10 nests of pelicans and nearly 200 nests of painted stork. [10] The Sittang River in Burma was said by E W Oates to have "millions" of pelicans in 1877 and in 1929 E C Stuart Baker reported that they were still nesting in thousands along with greater adjutant storks:
In their place, herons, ibises, spoonbills, the hamerkop, and the shoebill have now been transferred into the Pelecaniformes. [12] Molecular evidence suggests that the shoebill and the hamerkop form a sister group to the pelicans, [ 13 ] though some doubt exists as to the exact relationships among the three lineages.
Mabamba Bay is a wetland on the edge of Lake Victoria, northwest of the Entebbe peninsula in a village called Kasanje. [2] [3] It covers an area of 2424 ha and is a home to over 300 bird species. [4]
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 nest of the long-tailed tit, Aegithalos caudatus, is constructed from four materials – lichen, feathers, spider egg cocoons and moss, over 6000 pieces in all for a typical nest. The nest is a flexible sac with a small, round entrance on top, suspended low in a gorse or bramble bush. The structural stability of the nest is provided by a ...
Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. The hamerkop (Scopus umbretta) is a medium-sized bird.It is the only living species in the genus Scopus and the family Scopidae. The species and family was long thought to sit with the Ciconiiformes but is now placed with the Pelecaniformes, and its closest relatives are thought to be the pelicans and the shoebill.