Animal · South Sudan, Uganda, DR Congo
Shoebill
Balaeniceps rex — the name this animal has in the language scientists everywhere share.
The shoebill is a huge grey swamp bird with a bill shaped like a wooden clog, broad enough to swallow a lungfish whole. It stands as tall as a child and can hold perfectly still for many minutes.
Picture credit: Olaf Oliviero Riemer (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Olaf Oliviero Riemer (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Olaf Oliviero Riemer (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where does the shoebill live?
Home: Papyrus swamps and reed marshes of tropical East Africa.
In the wild it lives in these countries: South Sudan, Uganda, DR Congo, Zambia, Tanzania.
Conservation status from the IUCN: vulnerable.
The short profile
Fully grown: 110–140 cm tall, wingspan 230–260 cm. It weighs about 5.2 kilograms. On the menu: meat.
The story behind it
A shoebill hunts by waiting. It stands in the reeds with its head lowered, sometimes for a quarter of an hour, until a lungfish comes up to gulp air. Then the whole bird falls forward at once, bill and body together, and scoops up fish, water and plants in one load; the water drains out and the fish stays behind the sharp hook at the tip. The bill is about 20 centimetres long and edged like a blade, so a caught fish rarely escapes. Shoebills have no real song and clatter their bills instead, a sound like fast hollow knocking that carries across the swamp. Only about 5 000 to 8 000 are left, because the papyrus swamps they need are being drained and burned.
Find it on the globe
Shoebill is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
Why is it called a shoebill?
Because its bill really does look like a big wooden shoe: wide, rounded at the front and hooked at the tip. It is one of the broadest bills of any bird alive.
How big is a shoebill?
It stands 110 to 140 centimetres tall, about the height of a nine-year-old, and its wings measure up to 260 centimetres from tip to tip. It weighs around five kilograms.
Is the shoebill endangered?
Yes, it counts as vulnerable, with only about 5 000 to 8 000 birds left. The papyrus swamps it needs are being drained for farming, and chicks are sometimes taken for the animal trade.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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