Shoebill machine gun noise skin#

Traditionally considered as allied with the storks ( Ciconiiformes), it was retained there in the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy which lumped a massive number of unrelated taxa into their 'Ciconiiformes'. Alternative common names are whalebill, shoe-billed stork and whale-headed stork. The genus name comes from the Latin words balaena 'whale', and caput 'head', abbreviated to -ceps in compound words. He placed the species in its own genus Balaeniceps and coined the binomial name Balaeniceps rex. Gould provided a more detailed description in the following year.

Shoebill machine gun noise skin#

John Gould very briefly described it in 1850 from the skin of a specimen collected on the upper White Nile by the English traveller Mansfield Parkyns. The shoebill may have been known to Ancient Egyptians but was not classified until the 19th century, after skins and eventually live specimens were brought to Europe. Taxonomy Molecular studies have found the hamerkop to be the closest relative of the shoebill. It lives in tropical East Africa in large swamps from South Sudan to Zambia. The adult is mainly grey while the juveniles are more brown. However, genetic evidence places it with pelicans and herons in the Pelecaniformes.

It has a somewhat stork-like overall form and has previously been classified with the storks in the order Ciconiiformes based on this morphology. It derives its name from its enormous shoe-shaped bill. The shoebill ( Balaeniceps rex), also known as the whalebill, whale-headed stork, and shoe-billed stork is a large long-legged wading bird.