Shoebill facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

Quick facts for kids Shoebill

A shoebill standing at the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo
Conservation status
Vulnerable (IUCN 3.1)
CITES Appendix II (CITES)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Pelecaniformes
Family:	Balaenicipitidae
Genus:	*Balaeniceps* Gould, 1850
Species:	B. rex
Binomial name
*Balaeniceps rex* Gould, 1850

range
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The shoebill (scientific name Balaeniceps rex) is an amazing, giant water bird that lives in Africa. People also call it the whale-headed stork, whalebill, or shoe-billed stork. It gets its popular name from its huge, bulbous bill shaped like an old-fashioned Dutch wooden shoe. This extraordinary bird has long legs and looks a lot like a stork. For a long time, scientists thought it belonged with storks in the group Ciconiiformes. Modern DNA studies show it is closely related to pelicans, herons, and the curious hamerkop. These birds are all grouped together in the order Pelecaniformes. Fully grown adult birds have soft, blue-grey feathers, while young birds look browner. The shoebill makes its home in freshwater wetlands across East Africa. It can be spotted in huge swamps from South Sudan down through several nations to Zambia.

History and family roots of the shoebill
What the shoebill looks like
- Sounds and calls
- How the shoebill flies
Where the shoebill lives
Habits and daily life
- How the shoebill hunts
- Diet and hunting
Reproduction and family life cycle
Human interaction and protection
- Status and conservation
Images for kids
See also

History and family roots of the shoebill

Scientists found that the hamerkop is the closest living relative of the shoebill.

People living along the great riverways of Africa have known about the shoebill for thousands of years. Early artists in Ancient Egypt may have drawn these birds on walls and pottery. European naturalists did not write scientific accounts of the shoebill until the nineteenth century. Travelers brought dried bird skins and preserved specimens back across the Mediterranean Sea to European museums. The famous English bird expert John Gould gave the bird its scientific name in 1850. He examined a skin collected near the upper White Nile river by an explorer named Mansfield Parkyns. Gould chose the genus name Balaeniceps and created the binomial name Balaeniceps rex. This name comes from the Latin word balaena, meaning whale, and ceps, meaning head. The title rex means king in Latin, celebrating the bird's royal size.

For decades, experts sorted the shoebill alongside storks using a classification called the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy. That older system placed many long-legged marsh birds together in the stork family. In 1957, a researcher named Patricia Cottam carefully studied bird bones and suggested the shoebill was actually closer to pelicans. Later, in 1995, scientist Konstantin Mikhailov studied the microscopic shells of shoebill eggs. He found tiny structures inside the eggshells that matched the eggs of Pelecaniformes birds. Modern laboratory tests looking directly at bird genes confirmed this family connection in 2008.

Fossil discoveries help show that ancient cousins of the shoebill lived millions of years ago in prehistoric swamps. Paleontologists discovered bones of an extinct relative named Goliathia in rock layers from the Early Oligocene era in Egypt. Another ancient prehistoric relative called Paludiavis lived during the Late Miocene epoch in what is now Pakistan and Tunisia. Scientists also study a mystery fossil bird named Eremopezus. It had bone shapes that looked like a cross between the shoebill and the fierce secretarybird.

What the shoebill looks like

A tall shoebill showing off its huge bill and grey feathers.

The shoebill is one of the tallest birds in the marshlands. A normal adult stands between 110 to 140 cm (43 to 55 in) tall, and giants can reach 152 cm (60 in). From the tip of its tail to the end of its huge bill, it measures 100 to 140 cm (39 to 55 in). When it stretches its huge wings out wide, its wingspan reaches between 230 to 260 cm (7 ft 7 in to 8 ft 6 in). shoebills weigh between 4 to 7 kg (8.8 to 15.4 lb). Male birds are noticeably heavier, averaging around 5.6 kg (12 lb), while female birds weigh roughly 4.9 kg (11 lb).

The most amazing feature of this giant bird is its enormous bill. This huge mouth tool is colored light pinkish-yellow with dark grey blotches scattered across the surface. The top ridge of the bill, called the exposed culmen, measures 18.8 to 24 cm (7.4 to 9.4 in) long. That makes it the third-longest beak in the bird kingdom, right behind pelicans and huge storks. If you measure around the outside, the shoebill's beak is even bulkier than a pelican bill. The upper bill has a sharp ridge down the center that ends in a curved, sharp hook. This sharp tip acts like a hook to catch slippery swamp fish.

The skeleton and skull of a shoebill show its wide bill and bony build.

The shoebill has very long, dark legs designed for wading through water. Its lower leg bone, known as the tarsus, measures 21.7 to 25.5 cm (8.5 to 10.0 in) in length. Its feet are massive, and its middle toe can grow 16.8 to 18.5 cm (6.6 to 7.3 in) long. These wide, snowshoe-like toes spread the bird's weight evenly over floating plants so it does not sink into deep water. Unlike a crane or a tall heron, the shoebill has a thicker, muscular neck. Its broad wings have a wing chord length between 58.8 to 78 cm (23.1 to 30.7 in). These huge wings catch warm rising air currents, giving the bird strong lift to soar high across the blue sky.

Feathers on adult shoebills are an attractive ash-blue and grey color. Its primary flight feathers are a darker slaty grey shade. The chest feathers grow long and narrow, forming an elegant bib on its front. Baby birds hatch out covered in soft down feathers with a brownish-grey shade. Newly hatched chicks have small, normal-looking beaks colored silver-grey. By the time a chick reaches twenty-three days of age, the bill begins to swell and grow large. When the chick reaches forty-three days old, its beak looks just like a miniature adult bill.

Sounds and calls

Shoebills are quiet birds that spend most of their time in silence. When they greet their mates at the nest, they make loud bill-clattering noises. They snap their bills together quickly, creating a hollow, machine-gun clatter that echoes across the marsh. Adults also make low grunting sounds that sound like a cow mooing, alongside high whining noises. Hungry young chicks beg for food by making a strange noise that sounds like human hiccups. If another bird annoys an adult shoebill, like a passing marabou stork, the shoebill utters loud, hoarse croaks to warn it away.

How the shoebill flies

When soaring high in the air, the shoebill keeps its wings held out flat and steady. Just like storks in the genus Leptoptilos, it tucks its heavy head back against its chest in flight. This pulled-back posture balances the weight of its massive bill. The shoebill flaps its wings very slowly, beating them about 150 times every minute. That is one of the slowest flapping speeds of any flying bird in the world. It flaps its wings for seven seconds and then glides smoothly for another seven seconds. This smooth gliding style matches the flight of the giant Andean condor. Shoebills prefer standing still to flying and rarely fly farther than 100 to 500 m (330 to 1,640 ft) when disturbed. Flights longer than 20 m (66 ft) are uncommon unless the bird needs to find new water pools.

Where the shoebill lives

Shoebills live in freshwater marshes and floodplains in central tropical Africa. They can be found in the nations of Sudan, South Sudan, Rwanda, Uganda, western Tanzania, and northern Zambia. Some shoebills also live in eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The largest group of shoebills lives in South Sudan inside a massive swamp called the Sudd. Many shoebills also thrive in Uganda's lakes and the West Nile sub-region. A few wandering birds have been spotted in Kenya, the Central African Republic, northern Cameroon, south-western Ethiopia, and Malawi. Occasionally, lost wanderers fly far south into the Okavango Basin of Botswana or along the Congo River.

Ancient rock carvings called petroglyphs at Oued Djerat in Algeria show that shoebills lived much farther north thousands of years ago. During the Early Holocene wet period, green wetlands and rivers covered parts of the modern Sahara desert.

Shoebills prefer huge, quiet marshes filled with tall water plants. They thrive in marshes thick with papyrus sedges and reed beds made of tall grasses like Phragmites and cattails like Typha. They avoid dense patches of papyrus that are too thick to walk through, preferring spots with mixed plants. Shoebills also need floating water weeds that can support their weight over deeper water pools. They love shallow water with low levels of dissolved oxygen. Fish in oxygen-poor water must swim to the surface to gulp fresh air, making them easy targets for the shoebill. Sometimes shoebills visit flooded farm fields, such as a flooded rice field or an agricultural plantation.

Habits and daily life

The shoebill is famous for its slow, steady movements and can stand completely still for hours. Bird watchers often describe the bird as looking like an ancient stone statue. It stands motionlessly in the reeds, watching the water below without blinking. If people approach too close, a shoebill can get scared and fly away, sometimes leaving its nest behind. If thick reeds screen it from view, the bird remains calm and continues hunting.

Shoebills can walk over floating mats of vegetation like a gigantic marsh bird called a jacana. Another huge bird that shares its swamps, the Goliath heron, also walks across floating weed mats. shoebills are solitary creatures that live alone rather than in flocks. When hunting in the same swamp, individual birds stay at least 20 m (66 ft) apart from one another.

How the shoebill hunts

Instead of feeling around in murky mud like other wading birds using their sense of touch, the shoebill hunts entirely with its sharp eyes. It stalks forward one slow step at a time, watching for water movement. Once the bird spots a fish, it launches a sudden, explosive strike called a "collapse." It falls forward with wings spread, plunging its open beak straight into the water. Its heavy bill scoops up the prey along with mouthfuls of water, mud, and weeds. The shoebill lets the water spill out from the edges of its beak before swallowing the food whole. About six out of ten strikes are successful, making the shoebill an efficient hunter. Sometimes giant water mammals like the hippopotamus help the bird by stirring up deep water and scaring fish up toward the surface.

Diet and hunting

Shoebills are mainly fish-eating hunters, but they will catch many kinds of swamp creatures. Their favorite food is the marbled lungfish and the African lungfish. These tough fish have primitive lungs and must swim to the surface to breathe air. Shoebills also hunt the prehistoric Senegal bichir, different kinds of Tilapia, and smooth catfish belonging to the group Clarias.

Besides fish, shoebills catch and eat frogs, swimming water snakes, baby crocodiles, and young Nile monitor lizards. On rare occasions, they catch marsh turtles, swamp snails, small rodents, swimming waterfowl, and animal carrion.

With its sharp bill hook and wide mouth, a shoebill can swallow large meals that other wading birds cannot manage. In the Bangweulu Swamps of Zambia, shoebills eat fish measuring between 15 to 50 cm (5.9 to 19.7 in) long. Parents in Zambia often bring their growing chicks long catfish called Clarias gariepinus or water snakes over 50 to 60 cm (20 to 24 in) long. In Tanzania's Malagarasi marshes, shoebills catch fish between 60 to 80 cm (24 to 31 in) long, and one shoebill was seen catching a fish measuring 99 cm (39 in). If a fish is too long to swallow in one piece, the shoebill uses its sharp beak edges to cut the fish into pieces. It can take up to thirty minutes for a shoebill to position and swallow an extra-large fish. While the bird is working hard to swallow its catch, robbers like the African fish eagle sometimes swoop down and steal the meal.

Reproduction and family life cycle

A shoebill resting on the ground at the Prague Zoo in the Czech Republic.

Shoebills live and hunt alone, and they prefer to raise their families far away from other birds. Unlike colonial nesters like the cormorant, herons, and pelicans, shoebills never build nests close together. A single breeding pair claims a large territory of 2 to 4 km² (0.77 to 1.54 sq mi) and chases away any other shoebill that enters. In regions far north or south of the equator, shoebills begin building nests right after the seasonal rains stop. Near the equator, they start nesting toward the end of the wet season so their eggs hatch during dry conditions.

Both mother and father birds work together to build their nursery home. First, they clear out a circle of marsh plants about 3 m (9.8 ft) wide. Then, they pile up reeds, grass, and mud to create a wide floating island. The floating platform can be 3 m (9.8 ft) deep, and the nest bowl on top is 1.0 to 1.7 m (3.3 to 5.6 ft) wide. The female lays between one and three dull white eggs. Each egg measures 80 to 90 mm (3.1 to 3.5 in) long, 56 to 61 mm (2.2 to 2.4 in) wide, and weighs around 164 g (5.8 oz).

Both parents take turns sitting on the eggs to keep them warm during the thirty days of incubation. On scorching hot days when temperatures reach 30–33 °C (86–91 °F), the parents keep the eggs cool with water. A parent scoops water into its bill, swallows it, fills its bill a second time, and flies back to the nest. The parent then dumps the fresh water over the eggs and regurgitates the swallowed water to keep the eggs damp and cool. When eggs hatch, parents bring food up from their gullets and place it directly into the open beaks of the chicks.

Even though two or three chicks may hatch, the parents usually only raise one chick to adulthood. The older chick is stronger and gets most of the food, while the younger chicks act as backups in case the oldest does not survive. Chicks grow their flight feathers around 105 days after hatching and take their first flights at 112 days. The parents continue to feed and care for their young fledgling for another month or more. A young shoebill takes three full years of growing before it becomes an adult ready to find a mate.

Human interaction and protection

Bird enthusiasts travel from all over the world to see the shoebill in its native African marshes. Many birdwatchers consider the shoebill to be one of the top five most exciting birds to see in Africa. In the wild, shoebills are gentle toward humans and rarely show aggression. Biologists studying shoebills have been able to stand within 2 m (6 ft 7 in) of a nesting bird without disturbing it. shoebills are sometimes cared for in wildlife parks and zoological gardens, but they rarely hatch chicks in human care. Successful chick hatchings have occurred at zoological facilities such as Pairi Daiza in Belgium and Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo in the United States.

Status and conservation

Scientists estimate that only 5,000 to 8,000 shoebills remain in the wild today. Most live in protected parts of South Sudan, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Zambia. Because its numbers are low, the international conservation group BirdLife International lists the shoebill as a Vulnerable bird. The bird is also protected under international law by Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

The greatest danger to the shoebill's survival is habitat destruction. People drain swamps to create fields for growing crops and pastures for grazing cattle. In some areas, fires are set across the wetlands to clear land for cattle, burning up reeds where shoebills build their nests. Canals dug to redirect swamp water can dry up the wetlands that shoebills and their fish need to survive. Sometimes people take eggs or wild chicks from nests for trade or food. Wildlife organizations work with local communities and park rangers to patrol wetlands, preserve papyrus swamps, and make sure this unique bird continues to survive in Africa's rivers and marshes.