Great adjutant

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Great adjutant
Greater adjutant (Leptoptilos dubius) .jpg

Great adjutant ( Leptoptilos dubius )

Systematics
Class : Birds (aves)
Order : Ciconiiformes
Family : Storks (Ciconiidae)
Genre : Marabou ( Leptoptilos )
Type : Great adjutant
Scientific name
Leptoptilos dubius
( Gmelin , 1789)

The great adjutant or argala marabou ( Leptoptilos dubius ) is a large walking bird from the stork family.

features

The Great Adjutant is 145–150 cm long and has a wingspan of 250 cm. The large gray upper wing ceilings and umbrella feathers contrast clearly with the otherwise black upper side. The belly and underside of the tail are light gray, the ruff is white. The featherless head is pink and the mighty bill is yellow.

Occurrence

While the Great Adjutant used to breed in South Asia from India and Sri Lanka to Borneo , today the breeding area is limited to Assam and Cambodia . The bird overwinters in Vietnam , Thailand and Myanmar . It inhabits lakeshore and salt water swamps, but also sparse forests and dry grasslands.

Distribution map of the Great Adjutant
  • Breeding areas
  • Inhabited all year round by non-breeding birds
  • Spread in the summer months

    • Way of life

    The food consists of frogs, large insects, young birds, lizards and rodents, but also carrion and human garbage are not spurned by this stork. The Great Adjutant often breeds in small breeding colonies with up to 30 nests in tropical wetlands. Two to three eggs are incubated by both parent birds for 28–30 days.

    Duration

    While the bird was common in India and Burma in the 19th century, the number has declined to fewer than 1,000 today. The reasons for this are the destruction of breeding and forage areas by draining wetlands, the use of pesticides, as well as hunting and collecting eggs.

    literature

    • Richard Grimmett, Carol Inskipp, Tim Inskipp: Birds of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Christopher Helm, London 1998, ISBN 0-691-04910-6

    Web links

    Commons : Great Adjutant ( Leptoptilos dubius )  - collection of images, videos and audio files