Animalia > Chordata > Aves > Pelecaniformes > Ardeidae > Botaurus > Botaurus lentiginosus

Botaurus lentiginosus (American Bittern)

Synonyms: Ardea lentiginosa (homotypic)
Language: French; Spanish

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
6
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
29
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 13.3041
EDGE Score: 2.66055
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  427 grams
Birth Weight [3]  36 grams
Female Weight [1]  1.063 lbs (482 g)
Male Weight [1]  372 grams
Weight Dimorphism [1]  29.6 %
Breeding Habitat [2]  Freshwater marshes
Wintering Geography [2]  Southern U.S./Mexico
Wintering Habitat [2]  Freshwater marshes, Coastal saltmarshes
Diet [4]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Carnivore (Vertebrates), Piscivore
Diet - Ectothermic [4]  20 %
Diet - Fish [4]  60 %
Diet - Invertibrates [4]  20 %
Forages - Ground [4]  30 %
Forages - Water Surface [4]  70 %
Female Maturity [5]  1 year
Male Maturity [5]  1 year
Clutch Size [6]  4
Clutches / Year [1]  1
Global Population (2017 est.) [2]  2,000,000
Incubation [5]  34 days
Mating Display [3]  Ground display
Maximum Longevity [5]  8 years
Snout to Vent Length [1]  26 inches (66 cm)
Wing Span [7]  3.772 feet (1.15 m)

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

+ Click for partial list (100)Full list (163)

Ecosystems

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
California Floristic Province Mexico, United States No
Caribbean Islands Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Cayman Islands, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Martinique, Montserrat, Netherlands Antilles, Puerto Rico, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent And The Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks And Caicos Islands, Virgin Islands - British, Virgin Islands - U.S. No
Madrean Pine-Oak Woodlands Mexico, United States No
Mesoamerica Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama No

Habitat Vegetation Classification

Name Location  Website 
Great Plains Cottonwood - Willow Floodplain Forest United States (Montana, Wyoming, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, Kansas, Texas); Canada (Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan)
Midwest Mixed Emergent Deep Marsh Canada (Ontario); United States (Missouri, Tennessee, Iowa, South Dakota, Illinois, Nebraska, North Dakota, Kentucky, Alabama, Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin)

Prey / Diet

Lithobates catesbeianus (American Bullfrog)[8]

Predators

Haliaeetus leucocephalus (Bald Eagle)[8]

Consumers

Range Map

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Nathan 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
♦ 2Partners in Flight Avian Conservation Assessment Database, version 2017. Accessed on January 2018.
♦ 3Terje Lislevand, Jordi Figuerola, and Tamás Székely. 2007. Avian body sizes in relation to fecundity, mating system, display behavior, and resource sharing. Ecology 88:1605
♦ 4Hamish 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
♦ 5de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 6Jetz 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
♦ 7del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
♦ 8Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 9Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
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
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