Shoebill

You know, like when they mix a Shoebill and Giraffe and they get a Shoeaffe.

What The Hell Am I? 2007

Little known is that the Shoebill is one of a handful of birds that occasionally practices quadrupedality: when Shoebills lunge forward while grabbing prey, they sometimes use their wings to help push themselves upright.

Archive 2006-05-01 Darren Naish 2006

The phylogenetic affinities of the Shoebill (Balaeniceps rex).

Archive 2006-05-01 Darren Naish 2006

The affinities of the Shoebill have been controversial.

Archive 2006-05-01 Darren Naish 2006

As recently shown by Gerald Mayr (2003) however, the morphological evidence best supports a position for the Shoebill close to Steganopodes, the clade that includes frigate birds, pelicans, gannets, cormorants and anhingas (traditional Pelecaniformes is not monophyletic as tropicbirds are apparently closer to procellariiforms than they are to members of Steganopodes).

Archive 2006-05-01 Darren Naish 2006

Based on stapedial morphology, Feduccia (1977) argued that the Shoebill really is a stork.

Archive 2006-05-01 Darren Naish 2006

Standing 1.4 m tall, the Shoebill can exceed 2.6 m in wingspan and is best known for its remarkable wide bill.

Archive 2006-05-01 Darren Naish 2006

Unlike pelicans however, the long toes of the Shoebill are unwebbed and it is stork-like in some aspects of behaviour, practicing bill clattering and also dribbling water onto its eggs and young during the heat of the day.

Archive 2006-05-01 Darren Naish 2006

Hastily I rushed her out into the garden, where the Shoebill regarded her with one eye of prehistoric wisdom.

It Happened in Egypt 1889

She wanted to stop and make friends with the Shoebill, a super-stork, apparently carved in shining metal, with a bill like an enormous slipper, eyes like the hundredth - part-of-a-second stop in a Kodak, and feet that tested each new tuft of grass on the lawn, as if it were a specimen of some hitherto undiscovered thing.

It Happened in Egypt 1889