Animalia > Chordata > Aves > Pelecaniformes > Ardeidae > Butorides > Butorides sundevalli

Butorides sundevalli (Lava Heron)

Wikipedia Abstract

The lava heron (Butorides sundevalli), also known as the Galápagos heron, is a species of heron endemic to the Galápagos Islands. The adult is slate-grey, which helps it blend in with the hardened lava. The back feathers typically have a silvery sheen and it has a short crest on its head. When breeding, the heron has a black beak and bright orange legs, but they fade to grey after the breeding season. Lava herons are typically seen hunched over and they have a sharp alarm call. These highly territorial birds are found in intertidal zones and mangrove groves on all of the Galápagos Islands.
View Wikipedia Record: Butorides sundevalli

Attributes

Clutch Size [2]  3
Clutches / Year [2]  1
Fledging [2]  35 days
Incubation [2]  22 days
Maximum Longevity [2]  12 years
Snout to Vent Length [2]  16 inches (40 cm)
Water Biome [1]  Coastal
Adult Weight [2]  203 grams
Female Weight [2]  226 grams
Diet [1]  Carnivore
Female Maturity [2]  2 years
Male Maturity [2]  2 years

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Name IUCN Category Area acres Location Species Website Climate Land Use
Archipelago de Colon Biosphere Reserve 34336011 Galapagos Islands, Ecuador  

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Indo-Burma Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Viet Nam No
Mountains of Southwest China China, Myanmar No
Tumbes-Choco-Magdalena Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru No

Prey / Diet

Anchoa nasus (Longnose anchovy)[3]
Bathygobius lineatus (Southern frillfin)[3]
Dialommus fuscus (Galápagos four-eyed blenny)[3]

Prey / Diet Overlap

Competing SpeciesCommon Prey Count
Sula nebouxii (Blue-footed Booby)1

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
1Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
2Nathan 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
3"Foraging and Plumage Coloration of the Galapagos Lava Heron (Butorides striata sundevalli)", James A. Kushlan, Waterbirds 32(3): 415-422. 2009
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