50 Fun Facts About Pelican

What is a pelican's throat pouch actually used for?

Contrary to folklore, food is never stored in it; the bird presses the pouch to its chest to empty it.

How many living species of pelican are there?

Four white ground-nesters and four grey or brown tree-nesters, though DNA splits them into Old World and New World lines instead.

Which two pelican species are not predominantly pale?

Once thought to be one species, the two dark coastal divers are sometimes placed in their own subgenus, Leptopelecanus.

Pelicans' closest relatives turn out to be which two odd birds?

Neither is a true stork, but they share the order Pelecaniformes with herons, ibises and spoonbills.

The name 'pelican' comes from a Greek word derived from 'pelekys', meaning what?

In classical times the same word was applied to the woodpecker as well.

A 36-million-year-old pelican ancestor, Eopelecanus aegyptiacus, was identified from a bone found where?

The 'Valley of the Whales' fossil is a leg bone; French Miocene pelicans already had beaks identical to today's.

Which continent is the only one with no pelicans?

They also avoid polar seas, the open ocean, oceanic islands other than the Galápagos, and inland South America.

Which is the smallest of the eight species?

Small individuals can weigh under 3 kg with a wingspan as short as 1.83 metres.

Which is believed to be the largest of the eight species, at up to 15 kg with a 3-metre wingspan?

It is among the heaviest flying birds in the world; its biggest colony is on Small Prespa Lake between Greece and Albania.

Which bird has the longest bill of any living bird, up to half a metre?

Large males carry the record; the bird is also an eclectic scavenger that will take ducks and even small dogs.

Why are pelicans relatively light for their bulk and able to float so high in the water?

A network of air sacs under the skin also cushions the impact when a brown pelican dives from height.

Pelican wings have an unusually large number of what?

The long broad wings are built for soaring and gliding; a fibrous layer in the breast muscles locks them horizontal.

The Californian brown pelican's throat pouch turns which colour before breeding?

It fades to yellow once eggs are laid; the Peruvian pelican's pouch goes blue instead.

The American white pelican grows what on its bill in the breeding season?

It is shed once the females have laid their eggs.

How do pelicans shed excess heat?

With the bill open, the fluttering pouch works as an evaporative cooler.

Pelicans use thermals to soar to heights of how much when commuting to feeding grounds?

They can travel 150 km to feed, gliding and flapping in V formation.

Pelicans skimming low over water save energy through what phenomenon?

Air compressed between wing and water surface pushes back harder, cutting drag and adding lift.

How long does a pelican pair bond last?

Mates are independent away from the nest; the white species court in noisy group chases that can be over in a day.

In arid inland Australia, pelicans breed opportunistically in colonies of up to how many pairs?

Rare floods fill the salt lakes of the Lake Eyre basin for a few months, and the birds arrive in their thousands.

How long is a pelican's incubation period?

Both parents sit with the eggs on or under their feet; hatching success can reach 95%, but usually only one chick survives sibling rivalry.

After about a week, how do pelican chicks feed?

Fed chicks may 'throw a tantrum', dragging themselves in circles and banging their heads before collapsing.

From about 25 days old, young ground-nesting pelicans gather in groups called what?

Up to 100 chicks crowd together, but each parent recognises and feeds only its own.

How long do pelicans usually live in the wild?

One captive bird reached 54; they mature at three or four and fledge at ten to twelve weeks.

Which species habitually plunge-dives head-first from as high as 10 to 20 metres?

Only the Peruvian pelican dives similarly, from lower; the others mostly feed while swimming and scooping.

Which three pelicans prefer to feed alone rather than in groups?

Group fishers encircle shoals or drive them into the shallows; Dalmatians will even team up with great cormorants.

A gull will sometimes stand on a pelican's head and do what?

Large fish are tossed in the air and swallowed head-first, giving the thief a moment's chance.

Which species reportedly eats 'anything from insects and small crustaceans to ducks and small dogs'?

It forages in landfill sites and takes carrion; great white pelicans have swallowed city pigeons in London.

The brown pelican was listed as endangered in the US in 1970 mainly because of what?

Restrictions from 1972 let eggshells thicken again, and the species was delisted in 2009.

The brown pelican was removed from the US endangered list in which year?

The Audubon Society now puts the global brown pelican population at about 300,000.

Over 300 pelicans imported from Florida to rebuild a Gulf state's flock died in 1975 from what pesticide?

The 500 birds had been brought in to rebuild a population DDT had already wiped out.

After the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill, how many oiled brown pelicans were collected, per a 2011 report?

The Center for Biological Diversity estimated ten times as many had actually been harmed.

The world population of the largest pelican species is estimated at what?

It crashed through the 19th and 20th centuries, but the Small Prespa Lake colony in Greece has recovered to some 1,400 pairs.

Great white pelicans were culled on Dyer Island in the 19th century for threatening which industry?

They were eating the eggs and chicks of the seabirds whose droppings the collectors harvested.

In ancient Egypt, the pelican goddess Henet was associated with what?

The Pyramid Texts also call her the 'mother of the king'.

The Physiologus, an early Christian text, says a mother pelican revives her dead young with what?

She strikes her side after three days of mourning; medieval writers made it a symbol of Christ's sacrifice.

In heraldry, a mother bird feeding her young with her own blood is called a pelican in her what?

A 'pelican vulning' is one wounding herself; the Latin vulnero means 'I wound'.

Which English monarch adopted the pelican emblem, posing as 'mother of the Church of England'?

The pelican came to stand for the Passion and the Eucharist alongside the lamb and flag.

Which saint's hymn 'Adoro te devote' calls Christ the loving divine pelican?

One drop of the pelican's blood, the verse says, can save the world; The Pilgrim's Progress repeats the image.

Colleges named Corpus Christi at Oxford and Cambridge both feature which bird on their coats of arms?

The 'pelican in her piety' became attached to the feast of Corpus Christi and the Eucharist.

The brown pelican is the state bird of which US state, nicknamed the Pelican State?

A pelican and her young joined the state flag in 1912; the bird also adorns the seals of LSU, Tulane and other universities.

The brown pelican is the national bird of Barbados, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and where else?

It appears on the coats of arms of all three; the great white pelican is Romania's national bird.

The great white pelican is the national bird of which European country?

Its Danube Delta colonies are among the largest in Europe.

The pelican logo of the German stationery company Pelikan came from what?

Günther Wagner's arms showed a pelican feeding three chicks; he made it four when his fourth child was born.

Which NBA team has the pelican as its mascot?

The Lahti Pelicans ice hockey team, Tulane University and the University of the West Indies use it too.

Which institution in Dublin features a pelican in its logo, invoking the bird's symbolism of self-giving?

It operated for years from Pelican House in Dublin; Charles University's medical faculties in Prague also use the bird.

Which island was named by the Spanish for the brown pelicans nesting there?

The Spanish word comes from the Arabic al-caduos, a water vessel likened to the pelican's pouch; 'albatross' shares the root.

Which French polymath introduced the family Pelecanidae, as Pelicanea, in 1815?

Linnaeus had described the genus Pelecanus in 1758, lumping in frigatebirds, cormorants and sulids.

Which oceanic island group is the only one where pelicans occur naturally?

They are also absent from polar regions, the deep ocean and inland South America.

Which woodcarver's 1686 reredos at St Mary Abchurch in London shows the 'pelican in her piety'?

A much earlier example survives in a c. 1350 mural at Belchamp Walter church in Essex.

A Murri origin myth from Queensland explains how which species got its black and white plumage?

In the tale, recorded by Andrew Lang, the pelican was originally a black bird that built a canoe during a flood.