Shoebill: Prehistoric Dinosaur Looking Bird Sounds Like A Machine Gun
The shoebill (Balaeniceps rex) also known as whalehead, whale-headed stork, or shoe-billed stork, is a very large stork-like 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 (Balaeniceps rex) also known as whalehead, whale-headed stork, or shoe-billed stork, is a very large stork-like 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. However, genetic evidence places it with the Pelecaniformes. The adult is mainly grey while the juveniles are browner. Shoebill lives in tropical east Africa in large swamps from South Sudan to Zambia.
Shoebills are often silent birds that don’t produce a lot of noise. They are experts at patience and can spend endless hours standing motionless in the water while they wait for their next prey to swim by. They only make sounds during mating season. It has a hippopotamus call-like quality to it but is louder. To entice a partner, the birds make a loud interjection and exhibit with their bills. This noise is quite loud and unnerving.
A loud, hollow sound is produced when the shoebill smacks its upper and lower jaws together. These are short, repeated bursts that sound like machine guns or indigenous percussion. When shoebill chicks cry out for food, they emit a sound resembling a human when we hiccup.
They eat big fish like lungfish, eels, and catfish, and also crazy stuff like Nile monitor lizards, snakes, and baby crocodiles. Shoebills might be just as vicious as they appeared, as Victorian photographers discovered the hard way.
19th-century zoologist Stanley S. Flower wrote, “The shoebill is capable of inflicting a very powerful bite and is by no means a safe bird for a stranger ignorant of its ways to approach.”
Check out how wild this animal sounds in the video below!
