Zigzag heron

Zigzag heron
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Pelecaniformes
Family: Ardeidae
Genus: Zebrilus
Bonaparte, 1855
Species: Z. undulatus
Binomial name
Zebrilus undulatus
(Gmelin, 1789)

The zigzag heron (Zebrilus undulatus) is a species of heron in the family Ardeidae, also including egrets and bitterns. It is in the monotypic genus Zebrilus.[2] It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical swamps.

The zigzag heron is a species of the entire Amazon Basin, east of the Andes cordillera, and the five bordering countries on the basin's western periphery, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. The range does not extend beyond the Orinoco River basin of Venezuela in the northwest, and in the east-northeast encompasses the Guianas; in the southeast Amazon Basin the range does not extend east of the Tapajós River drainage.

It is a mid-sized short-legged and -necked heron, generally medium brown with a tight darker barring in adult birds. Due to its appearance it was often assigned to the tiger herons (Tigrisoma and allies). But in fact, it is a true bittern, having like these only 10 rectrices (other Ardeidae have 12) and being unequivocally placed in the bittern lineage by DNA sequence data too. Short legs and necks and cryptic plumage may thus be plesiomorphic among Ardeidae in general.

References

Media related to Zigzag heron at Wikimedia Commons Data related to Zigzag heron at Wikispecies

  1. ↑ BirdLife International (2012). "Zebrilus undulatus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2. International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
  2. ↑ "Zigzag Heron (Zebrilus undulatus)". The Internet Bird Collection. Retrieved 27 October 2011.

External links


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Monday, November 09, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.