Shoebills

Alex Re: [00:00:00] Hello, welcome to On Wildlife. I'm your host, Alex Re On this podcast, we bring the wild to you. We take you on a journey into the life of a different animal every month, and I guarantee you you're gonna come out of here knowing more about your favorite animal than you did before. In this episode, we're taking a look at a peculiar animal that looks like it was taken right out of a Jurassic Park movie.

These large birds have the coolest features and adaptations that I can't wait to tell you about. So let's hop in a boat and head to the marshes of Africa to talk about shoebills.

The shoebill, also known as the shoebill stork, is one of the most interesting bird species on the planet. They have bluish-gray [00:01:00] feathers with a yellow bill. Their scientific name is Balaeniceps rex, which roughly translates to whale head king. To figure out why they have this name, look no further than their bills.

The shoebill's huge beak looks like the head of baleen whale species like humpbacks and blue whales. It's the third longest bill of any bird living today, and it's the thickest bill in the animal kingdom. Their common name, shoebill, also references the shape of the bill, with many people saying it looks like a Dutch clog.

Shoebills are the only members of the Balaeniceps family, and although some people call them shoebill storks, they're not storks at all. They're more closely related to pelicans and herons. One main characteristic that shoebills share with them is the fact that they're all aquatic birds, spending a lot of their time in the water.

Shoebills are native to the swamps and marshes of Eastern [00:02:00] Africa. Usually, these areas have very slow-moving water and a lot of grasses and other vegetation. Some people call the shoebill the swamp king, and these birds just look like they're from the past. They have some dinosaur-esque characteristics, and yes, all birds descended from dinosaurs, but the shoebill just has that look about them.

One reason is probably their size. They can grow up to five feet tall and have really long legs. What's interesting is that they're a lot lighter than you'd think. They only weigh 12 pounds. For scale, the average five-foot-tall human weighs over 100 pounds. Shoebills are so much lighter than us because they have hollow bones, like all birds, which makes it easier to fly.

They also look heavier than they are because of their feathers, which weigh very little. Speaking of flight, their wingspan is almost eight feet long, but they spend most of their time on the [00:03:00] ground and don't usually fly for long amounts of time. Just like vultures, they use thermals, which are columns of hot air, to help keep them in the sky without having to flap their wings too much.

And according to the fossil record, shoebills have been around for 30 million years. That's more than 20 million years before humans diverged from our common ancestors with other apes. Okay, let's take our first break, and when we get back, we'll talk about what shoebills eat.

Today, I wanna give a shout-out to Garnet and Owen, who have recently joined our Patreon. Thank you so much, guys. It really means a lot to us. If you love On Wildlife and you wanna support us, you should check out our Patreon at patreon.com/onwildlife. Okay, now back to the episode. Shoebills are [00:04:00] carnivorous, with fish like tilapia and catfish being their main food source, but they've also been known to eat lizards, birds, and even crocodiles.

Their most effective hunting tool is their bill that we talked about earlier. Shoebills usually stand in shallow waters when looking for a meal. They can stand perfectly still for hours at a time with their heads looking down, waiting to see movement in the water. A lot of people are unsettled by the fact that they can just sit there and stare at you.

And as soon as they see a fish, they pounce down on the water, bill first. Their bill is sharp on the edges, and shoebills have been known to decapitate their prey, making for a quick kill. Their bills are so large that along with their prey, they also take in a lot of vegetation. So before swallowing a fish, they'll shake any unwanted plant matter out.

I guess they don't like a salad with their meal. This [00:05:00] hunting technique really works with the habitats that they live in. The water that they hunt in usually has low amounts of oxygen, and some of the fish that they eat, like catfish and lungfish, will actually come up for air. When they bring themselves up to the water's surface, this is the perfect time for the shoebill to make their move.

And another benefit from being in their specific habitat is that they live near hippos. When hippos move throughout the water, they agitate schools of fish, allowing for more fish to swim up towards them. Even though these are large birds, they still have to watch out for predators, like the Nile crocodile and monitor lizards.

To watch out for these predators, they have really good eyesight, which is also a great tool for looking for prey. Their territories usually range a little over a square mile, and to make their presence known to others, they make one of the most interesting sounds in the animal kingdom. [00:06:00] They can clap their huge bill together, which is called bill clattering, and it makes this insanely loud noise that sounds like a machine gun.

It really doesn't even sound like a noise that an animal can make, and it will definitely be sure to scare others off of their territory. This sound can also be used as a mating ritual and a greeting to other individuals. Some studies show that males and females have different tones to their clattering.

Mating for shoebills happens in the dry season when there's not a lot of rain, meaning less food is available. This is so that when the eggs hatch, the dry season will be over, allowing for more food to feed their young. The female shoebill lays between one and three eggs, and both the male and female assist in raising their young.

They're also monogamous, so they only mate with one individual. And before we continue talking about these really cool creatures, let's take our last break.[00:07:00]

Time for today's trivia question. Which animal is capable of hearing sound frequencies of up to 300 kilohertz, which is 280 kilohertz more than what humans can hear at?

The answer is a moth. More specifically, the wax moth Okay, now back to the episode. Shoebills make their nests from floating vegetation, and they participate in a behavior called egg watering, which is kind of what it sounds like. Where shoebills live, it can get really hot, with temperatures over 90 degrees Fahrenheit, so to keep the eggs from overheating, the parents will fill their bill with water and pour it over them.

They also defecate on their own legs to [00:08:00] cool themselves down, and if you listen to our episode on vultures, you'll know that they do the same thing. Another way they keep cool is by gular fluttering, which is something that a lot of different bird species do. This is when they vibrate their throat muscles in order to quickly pass cool air through their system.

If you breathe in and out quickly, you'll notice that the air that you're breathing is cold. This is because fast-moving air drags cooler air with it. Birds don't sweat like we do, so this is how they avoid overheating. So after the chicks hatch, the parents will regurgitate food into their mouths to feed them, and as the chicks grow, the parents will start feeding them solid food instead of regurgitating it.

It takes about 60 days for young shoebills to develop all of their feathers, and more than 100 days until they're able to fly and become independent. Unfortunately, because there are limited resources, only one of the [00:09:00] chicks usually survives. The chick that's born first is usually stronger and outcompetes the others for food, so the weaker chicks don't make it to adulthood.

And you might be asking yourself why shoebills lay more than one egg if only one survives in the first place. Well, in case that first chick dies before it matures, the other chicks are basically a backup plan. Another interesting thing about the shoebill life cycle is that shoebills are long-lived animals.

They can live for over 35 years. And of course, they're really important to the ecosystems that they live in. As predators, they keep multiple fish populations in check, which maintains the overall health of the ecosystem. They're also important to humans because they're an indicator species. We've talked about this a few times on the show, but indicator species can basically tell us how healthy an ecosystem is.

If there are a lot of shoebills in the area, that [00:10:00] habitat is most likely doing well, and vice versa. They're also great for eco-tourism and the economy of the local communities. Tons of people pay to see these amazing animals in the wild. Unfortunately, they're listed as vulnerable by the IUCN Red List.

One of the major issues for shoebills is habitat loss. Their habitats are being turned into agricultural land, and they can't just get up and move. Shoebills need very specific environmental conditions to survive and reproduce. Another problem is that people will catch them in the wild and try to sell them to zoos.

Apparently, they're one of the most valuable animals in the pet and zoo trade. In addition to them being taken out of their native habitat, they rarely ever breed in captivity, so this basically ensures that this individual won't have offspring. There's only an estimated 5,000 adult shoebills left in the wild, and it's especially hard for [00:11:00] them to recover because of their slow reproductive rates.

They only lay eggs once per year, and the young take a good amount of time to develop compared to other species. Luckily, there are organizations that have employed different strategies to help shoebill populations. The organization African Parks has employed community members that live near shoebill habitats to stand watch over them during breeding season.

They've also started a breeding program where they'll take one of the eggs of a shoebill, raise it at a rehabilitation center, and release it back into the wild when it's ready to hunt for itself. Aside from African Parks, you should also check out Save the Shoebill and Bird Life. Thank you so much for coming on this adventure with me as we explored the world of shoebills.

You can find the sources that we used for this podcast and links to organizations that we reference at onwildlife.org. You can also email us with any [00:12:00] questions at onwildlife.podcast@gmail.com, and you can follow us on Instagram @on_wildlife or on TikTok @onwildlife. And don't forget to tune in next month for another awesome episode.

And that's On Wildlife.