Critically Endangered
White-bellied Heron
Ardea insignis
The white-bellied heron also known as the imperial heron or great white-bellied heron, is a large heron species living in the foothills of the eastern Himalayas in northeast India and Bhutan to northern Myanmar.
Appearance
The white-bellied heron has a uniform dark grey plumage, a whitish belly, and long silvery or whitish plumes on the rear crown and lower foreneck. In breeding plumage, it has a greyish-white nape plume and elongated grey breast feathers with white centers. The face is greenish grey and the 15.2–17.6 cm (6.0–6.9 in) long bill black, but greenish near the base and tip. The iris is yellow to ochre, and the legs and feet are dull grey.
With a height of 127 cm (50 in), it is the second largest heron. A white-bellied heron killed on the upper Ayeyarwady River in 1903 had 61 cm (24 in) long wing bones, a wing spread of 100 cm (40 in) and a wingspan of 210 cm (84 in).
Range and habitat
The white-bellied heron inhabits the wetlands of tropical and subtropical forests in the foothills of the eastern Himalayas of northeast India and Myanmar. It also occurs in Bhutan's low elevation riparian environments below 1,700 m (5,600 ft). In Bhutan, it inhabits the basin of Sankosh River and its tributaries below 1,500 m (4,900 ft).
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
During the breeding season, the white-bellied heron calls during early morning hours, with the highest call density shortly before sunrise. It also frequently calls in late night hours, but rarely during the day. It prefers foraging in shallow river sections with multiple about 200 m (660 ft) wide channels, in shallow ponds and pools within river islands, and on island edges.
In crisis
It has been listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2007, because the global population is estimated at fewer than 250 mature individuals and threatened by habitat loss and human disturbance. The white-bellied heron is threatened by habitat loss, increasing disturbance and habitat degradation due to conversion of wetlands for agriculture and expansion of settlements, harvesting of wetland resources and poaching. It is locally extinct in Nepal and possibly also in Bangladesh.
It has been listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2007 as the global population is thought to consist of fewer than 250 mature individuals and to decline rapidly.
White-bellied Heron is Critically 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 White-bellied Heron, Wikidata item Q852874. 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.
