The royal spoonbill (''Platalea regia''), also known as the black-billed spoonbill, occurs in intertidal flats and shallows of fresh and saltwater wetlands in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

, and the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons,John Prados, ''Islands of Destiny'', Dutton Caliber, 2012, p,20 and passim is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 1000 smaller islands in Melanesia, part of Oceania, t ...

. (In New Zealand, it is also known by the

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...

name .) It has also been recorded as a

vagrant Vagrancy is the condition of wandering homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants usually live in poverty and support themselves by travelling while engaging in begging, scavenging, or petty theft. In Western countries, ...

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

. The royal spoonbill lives in wetlands and feeds on crustaceans, fish and small insects by sweeping its bill from side to side. It always flies with its head extended. Widespread throughout its large range, the royal spoonbill is evaluated as

Least Concern A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...

on the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological ...

of Threatened Species.

Taxonomy

The renowned ornithologist

John Gould John Gould (; 14 September 1804 – 3 February 1881) was an English ornithologist who published monographs on birds, illustrated by plates produced by his wife, Elizabeth Gould (illustrator), Elizabeth Gould, and several other artists, includ ...

first described the royal spoonbill in 1838, naming it ''Platalea regia'' and noting its similarity to the

Eurasian spoonbill The Eurasian spoonbill (''Platalea leucorodia''), or common spoonbill, is a wading bird of the ibis and spoonbill family Threskiornithidae, native to Europe, Africa and Asia. The species is partially migratory with the more northerly breeding popu ...

(''P. leucorodia''). A 2010 study of

mitochondrial DNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA and mDNA) is the DNA located in the mitochondrion, mitochondria organelles in a eukaryotic cell that converts chemical energy from food into adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA is a small portion of the D ...

of the spoonbills by Chesser and colleagues found that the royal and

black-faced spoonbill The black-faced spoonbill (''Platalea minor'') is a species of wading bird in the ibis and spoonbill family Threskiornithidae, found in eastern Asia. This species has the most restricted distribution of the six spoonbill species, and it is the ...

s were each other's closest relatives.

Description

The royal spoonbill is a large, white bird with a black, spoon-shaped bill. It is approximately tall, and a weight of .
(2011).''CRC Handbook of Avian Body Masses'' by John B. Dunning Jr. (Editor). CRC Press (1992), . It is a wading bird and has long legs for walking through water. It eats

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

shellfish Shellfish, in colloquial and fisheries usage, are exoskeleton-bearing Aquatic animal, aquatic invertebrates used as Human food, food, including various species of Mollusca, molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish ...

crabs Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura (meaning "short tailed" in Greek), which typically have a very short projecting tail-like abdomen, usually hidden entirely under the thorax. Their exoskeleton is often thickened and ha ...

and

amphibians Amphibians are ectothermic, anamniote, anamniotic, tetrapod, four-limbed vertebrate animals that constitute the class (biology), class Amphibia. In its broadest sense, it is a paraphyletic group encompassing all Tetrapod, tetrapods, but excl ...

, catching its prey by making a side-to-side movement with its bill. The end of the bill of the royal spoonbill is broader and works more like a pair of

tongs Tongs are a type of tool used to grip and lift objects instead of holding them directly with hands. There are many forms of tongs adapted to their specific use. Design variations include resting points so that the working end of the tongs d ...

than the narrower bill of the yellow-billed spoonbill, which acts like a

forceps Forceps (: forceps or considered a plural noun without a singular, often a pair of forceps; the Latin plural ''forcipes'' is no longer recorded in most dictionaries) are a handheld, hinged instrument used for grasping and holding objects. Forcep ...

Feeding

The royal spoonbill is carnivorous, catching small animals by sweeping its bill through shallow water and swallowing prey once detected. When slow sweeping, the spoonbill walks slowly with the bill perpendicular to the water surface (i.e. vertical) with the bill tip open about , sweeping an arc of around 100 degrees in front of the bird. The bird walks slowly, kicking up debris and small animals from the bottom of the body of water, which it senses and catches with its bill. When an item is sensed, the spoonbill switches to intensive sweeping of a small area. Royal spoonbills also probe submerged plants directly for prey, and seize prey such as spiders above ground. They have also been observed dragging their bills through shallow water alongside them while walking. Prey items recorded at Lake Cowal include freshwater crustaceans such as the common yabby (''Cherax destructor''), shrimp of the genus '' Macrobrachium'' and family

Atyidae Atyidae is a family of shrimp, present in all tropical and most temperate waters of the world. Adults of this family are almost always confined to fresh water Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water conta ...

, insects, particularly aquatic bugs of the families

Notonectidae Notonectidae is a Cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan family of aquatic insects in the order Hemiptera, commonly called backswimmers because they swim "upside down" (inverted). They are all predators and typically range from in length. They ...

and

Corixidae Corixidae is a family of aquatic insects in the order Hemiptera. They are found worldwide in virtually any freshwater habitat and a few species live in saline water. There are about 500 known species worldwide, in 55 genera, including the genus ...

, fish such as mosquitofish ('' Gambusia affinis'') and goldfish ('' Carassius auratus''), and occasionally freshwater snails and plant material such as medic burr ('' Medicago polymorpha'').

Breeding

When they are breeding, long white plumes grow from the back of their heads and coloured patches appear on the face. The nest is an open platform of sticks in a tree in which the female lays two or three eggs. The chicks hatch after 21 days. The birds are highly sensitive to disturbance in the breeding season. In Australia, whole colonies have been known to desert their eggs after a minor upset.

Gallery

File:Royal Spoonbill having a bad hair day.jpg, File:Royal Spoonbill 001a.jpg, File:Platalea regia in flight - Sydney Olympic Park.jpg, File:Royal Spoonbill RWD3.jpg, File:Two Spoonbills (30564283884).jpg, File:RoyalSpoonBillsFoggDam.jpg, File:Sleeping Spoonbills.jpg, File:Clontarf Spoon Bill Ibis-1=4K (14115328463).jpg, File:Royal Spoonbill 004a.jpg,

References

External links

BirdLife Species Factsheet
{{Taxonbar, from=Q722981 IUCN Red List least concern species royal spoonbill Birds of the Lesser Sunda Islands Birds of Oceania royal spoonbill