Endangered
Junin grebe
Podiceps taczanowskii
The Junin grebe, also known as Junin flightless grebe or puna grebe, is a flightless species of grebe endemic to Lake Junin in the Andean highlands of Junin in west-central Peru.
Appearance
With a size of approximately 35 cm (14 in), the Junin grebe has a dark grey crown extending down the back of its neck to a black back. It has white lower parts of the face, neck and underparts, with a narrow grey bill. On the side of the head of adults there are silvery grey feathers, that are absent on non-breeding adults and juveniles.
The Junin grebe, also known as Junin flightless grebe or puna grebe, is a flightless species of grebe endemic to Lake Junin in the Andean highlands of Junin in west-central Peru.
Range and habitat
Junin grebes are found only in and around Lake Junin, in west-central Peru. The lake covers approximately 140 km2 (54 sq mi) and at its deepest is 10 m (33 ft) deep, although most of the lake is less than 5 m (16 ft) deep. Around the borders of the lake are substantial reed marshes, where the grebes nest and roost.
Lake Junin has been classed as a national reserve since 1974, that has restricted the amount of fishing and hunting that can take place there.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
About 90% of the diet of the Junin grebe is small fish, especially those less than 2.5 cm (1 in) long, with the remaining part of its diet being small invertebrates. Junin Grebe species account at Neotropical Birds (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) Courtship involves two grebes facing breast to breast and turning their head quickly from side to side, called 'head-shaking'.
The grebe generally breeds in bays and channels around the edge of the lake, within 8–75 m (26–246 ft) of reed beds, entering the reeds only for nesting or roosting. When not breeding, Junin grebe prefer open water, moving far out from lake shores.
In crisis
An endangered species, the current population is estimated at 300–400 individuals, among them 140–320 adults. Large fluctuations in water levels, caused by a nearby hydroelectric plant and unstable climatic conditions (in part linked to El Niño), water pollution from mining activities and sewage, burning of reeds, competition for food with the introduced rainbow trout, and drowning in fishing nets, have caused the population of Junin grebes to fall from more than 1000 individuals in 1961 to about 300-400 individuals in the 2010s. The environmental damage and the introduced, predatory rainbow trout have caused the native fish population to plummet, along with the populations of the two endemic grebes.
Junin grebe is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Junin grebe, Wikidata item Q926641. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
