COVER STORY: SPECIES PROFILE
THE shoe-billed stork (Balaeniceps rex), also called the whale-headed stork, whalehead or, more usually, shoebill, has the most unusual beak of any bird. It is as if the evolutionary bird design team had been intent on winning the Bizarre Bird Beak Design Award of the Year.
A number of birds have unusual beaks: the flamingo’s, with its small upper mandible and lower mandible double the size, operates as an efficient water filter. Yet some beaks - such as those of the crossbills, New Zealand wrybill, sword-billed hummingbird and the three species of skimmer - if found in individuals of other species, would be a sign of deformity or injury.
The only bird that bears a superficial resemblance to the shoebill, albeit on a much smaller scale, is the unrelated). But whereas the boatbill calmly scythes the water to catch prey, the shoebill uses its beak dramatically to seize prey, with all the subtlety of a mechanical digger.