African darter
| African darter | |
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| African darter in Botswana | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Suliformes |
| Family: | Anhingidae |
| Genus: | Anhinga |
| Species: | A. rufa |
| Binomial name | |
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Anhinga rufa (Daudin, 1802) |
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| Distribution map | |
| Synonyms | |
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Anhinga africana |
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Anhinga africana
The African darter (Anhinga rufa), sometimes called the snakebird, is a water bird of sub-Saharan Africa and Iraq.
The African darter is a member of the darter family, Anhingidae, and is closely related to American (Anhinga anhinga), Oriental (Anhinga melanogaster), and Australasian (Anhinga novaehollandiae) darters.
The male is mainly glossy black with white streaking, but females and immature birds are browner. The African darter differs in appearance from the American darter most recognisably by its thin white lateral neck stripe against a rufous background colour. The pointed bill should prevent confusion with cormorants.
It is an 80 cm long cormorant-like fish-eating species with a very long neck, like other anhingas.
immature
Lake Baringo, Kenya
adult drying wings
Lake Baringo, Kenya
The African darter is found throughout sub-Saharan Africa wherever large bodies of water occur; overall the species remains widespread and common.
One subspecies, the Levant darter (Anhinga rufa chantrei), occurred at Lake Amik (Amik Gölü) in south-central Turkey, in Hula valley lake and marshes in northern Israel and in the Mesopotamian Marshes of the lower Euphrat and Tigris rivers in southern Iraq. The Turkish population disappeared during the 1930s and the Israeli population during Hula drainage in the 1950s. It was feared that it also had disappeared from Iraq, but a small and threatened population remains at least in the Hawizeh Marshes (part of the Mesopotamian Marshes), which are also home to numerous other waters birds such as little grebe, pygmy cormorant, marbled teal and sacred ibis.
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Wikipedia