Animalia > Chordata > Aves > Pelecaniformes > Ardeidae > Ardea > Ardea pacifica

Ardea pacifica (White-necked Heron)

Wikipedia Abstract

The white-necked heron, formally known as the Pacific heron (Ardea pacifica), is a species of heron that is found on most of the Australian continent wherever freshwater habitats exist. It is also found in parts of Indonesia, New Guinea and New Zealand, but is uncommon in Tasmania. The populations of this species in Australia are known to be nomadic like most water birds in Australia, moving from one water source to another often entering habitats they have not previously occupied. Taking advantage of flooding and heavy rain where the surplus of food allows them to breed and raise their young. Population explosions have been known when the environmental conditions are right for this species in places where they have been rare or unknown.
View Wikipedia Record: Ardea pacifica

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
4
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
25
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 10.1115
EDGE Score: 2.40798
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  1.942 lbs (881 g)
Birth Weight [1]  42 grams
Diet [2]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Carnivore (Vertebrates), Piscivore
Diet - Ectothermic [2]  10 %
Diet - Fish [2]  40 %
Diet - Invertibrates [2]  50 %
Forages - Water Surface [2]  100 %
Clutch Size [4]  4
Incubation [3]  29 days
Mating Display [1]  Ground and non-acrobatic aerial display
Mating System [1]  Monogamy
Snout to Vent Length [5]  36 inches (92 cm)
Wing Span [3]  5.018 feet (1.53 m)

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Southwest Australia Australia No

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Porrocaecum reticulata <Unverified Name>[6]

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Terje Lislevand, Jordi Figuerola, and Tamás Székely. 2007. Avian body sizes in relation to fecundity, mating system, display behavior, and resource sharing. Ecology 88:1605
♦ 2Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 3del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
♦ 4Jetz W, Sekercioglu CH, Böhning-Gaese K (2008) The Worldwide Variation in Avian Clutch Size across Species and Space PLoS Biol 6(12): e303. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060303
♦ 5Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 6Species Interactions of Australia Database, Atlas of Living Australia, Version ala-csv-2012-11-19
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0