The African jacana (''Actophilornis africanus'') is a
wader
245px, A flock of Dunlins and Red knots">Red_knot.html" ;"title="Dunlins and Red knot">Dunlins and Red knots
Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wikt:wade#Etymology 1, wading along shorelines and mudflat ...
in the family
Jacanidae. It has long toes and long claws that enables it to walk on floating vegetation in shallow lakes, its preferred habitat. It is widely distributed in
sub-Saharan Africa. For the origin and pronunciation of the name, see
Jacanidae.
Taxonomy
The African jacana was
formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist
Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his Nobility#Ennoblement, ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalise ...
's ''
Systema Naturae''. He placed it in the
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...
''Parra'' and coined the
binomial name ''Parra africana''. Gmelin based his description on that by the English ornithologist
John Latham who in 1785 had described and illustrated the species in his ''A General Synopsis of Birds''. Gmelin and Latham gave the
locality
Locality may refer to:
* Locality (association), an association of community regeneration organizations in England
* Locality (linguistics)
* Locality (settlement)
* Suburbs and localities (Australia), in which a locality is a geographic subdivis ...
as "Africa": this was restricted to Ethiopia in 1915. The African jacana is now placed in the genus ''
Actophilornis
''Actophilornis'' is a genus of jacana. It contains two species restricted to Africa and its surrounding islands.
Taxonomy
The genus ''Actophilornis'' was introduced in 1925 by the American ornithologist Harry C. Oberholser with the African ...
'' that was introduced in 1925 by the American ornithologist
Harry C. Oberholser.
The genus name combines the
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
''aktē'' meaning "river bank" or "coastal strand", ''-philos'' meaning "-loving" and ''ornis'' meaning "bird".
The species is considered to be
monotypic
In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispe ...
: no
subspecies are recognised.
[
]
Description
The African jacanas is a conspicuous and unmistakable bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...
. It measures in overall length. As in other jacanas, the female is on average larger than the male. Males can weigh from , averaging and females from , averaging . Alongside the similarly-sized Madagascar jacana
The Madagascar jacana (''Actophilornis albinucha'') is a species of bird in the family Jacanidae.
It is endemic to Madagascar
Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links= ...
, this appears to be the heaviest jacana species. They have chestnut upperparts with black wingtips, rear neck, and eyestripe. The underparts are also chestnut in the adults, only in juveniles they are white with a chestnut belly patch. The blue bill extends up as a coot
Coots are medium-sized water birds that are members of the rail family, Rallidae. They constitute the genus ''Fulica'', the name being the Latin term for "coot". Coots have predominantly black plumage, and—unlike many rails—they are usually ...
-like head shield, and the legs and long toes are grey.
Behaviour
Food and feeding
African jacanas feed on insect
Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three ...
s and other invertebrates picked from the floating vegetation or the surface of the water.
Breeding
African jacanas breed throughout sub- Saharan Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
. It is sedentary apart from seasonal dispersion. It lays four black-marked brown eggs in a floating nest.
The jacana has evolved a highly unusually polyandrous
Polyandry (; ) is a form of polygamy in which a woman takes two or more husbands at the same time. Polyandry is contrasted with polygyny, involving one male and two or more females. If a marriage involves a plural number of "husbands and wive ...
mating system, meaning that one female mates with multiple males and the male alone cares for the chicks. Such a system has evolved due to a combination of two factors: firstly, the lakes that the jacana lives on are so resource-rich that the relative energy expended by the female in producing each egg is effectively negligible. Secondly the jacana, as a bird, lays eggs, and eggs can be equally well incubated and cared for by a parent bird of either sex. This means that the rate-limiting factor of the jacana's breeding is the rate at which the males can raise and care for the chicks. Such a system of females forming harems of males is in direct contrast to the more usual system of leks
A lek is an aggregation of male animals gathered to engage in competitive displays and courtship rituals, known as lekking, to entice visiting females which are surveying prospective partners with which to mate. A lek can also indicate an avail ...
seen in animals such as stags and grouse, where the males compete and display in order to gain harems of females.
The parent that forms part of the harem is almost always the one that ends up caring for the offspring; in this case, each male jacana incubates and rears a nest of chicks. The male African jacana has therefore evolved some remarkable adaptations for parental care, such as the ability to pick up and carry chicks underneath its wings.
African jacana actophilornis africanus.jpg, adult, Okavango delta
The Okavango Delta (or Okavango Grassland; formerly spelled "Okovango" or "Okovanggo") in Botswana is a swampy inland delta formed where the Okavango River reaches a tectonic trough at an altitude of 930–1,000 m in the central part of the en ...
, Botswana
Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label= Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalaha ...
Actophilornis africana -Kakegawa Kacho-en, Kakegawa, Shizuoka, Japan -chick-8a.jpg, chick at Kakegawa
is a city in western Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 117,925 in 45,519 households. The total area of the city is .
Geography
Kakegawa is in the coastal plains of southwest Shizuoka Prefecture. It is border ...
, Shizuoka
Shizuoka can refer to:
* Shizuoka Prefecture, a Japanese prefecture
* Shizuoka (city), the capital city of Shizuoka Prefecture
* Shizuoka Airport
* Shizuoka Domain, the name from 1868 to 1871 for Sunpu Domain, a predecessor of Shizuoka Prefecture
...
, Japan
African jacana (Actophilornis africanus) juvenile.jpg, juvenile, Lake Baringo
Lake Baringo is, after Lake Turkana, the most northern of the Kenyan Rift Valley lakes, with a surface area of and an elevation of . The lake is fed by several rivers: the Molo, Perkerra and Ol Arabel. It has no obvious outlet; the waters ar ...
, Kenya
)
, national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Nairobi
, coordinates =
, largest_city = Nairobi
...
Actophilornis africanus MHNT.ZOO.2010.11.2.23.jpg, ''Actophilornis africanus'' - MHNT
References
External links
* African jacana
Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds
{{Taxonbar, from=Q132201
African jacana
The African jacana (''Actophilornis africanus'') is a wader in the family Jacanidae. It has long toes and long claws that enables it to walk on floating vegetation in shallow lakes, its preferred habitat. It is widely distributed in sub-Saharan A ...
African jacana
The African jacana (''Actophilornis africanus'') is a wader in the family Jacanidae. It has long toes and long claws that enables it to walk on floating vegetation in shallow lakes, its preferred habitat. It is widely distributed in sub-Saharan A ...
African jacana
The African jacana (''Actophilornis africanus'') is a wader in the family Jacanidae. It has long toes and long claws that enables it to walk on floating vegetation in shallow lakes, its preferred habitat. It is widely distributed in sub-Saharan A ...
African jacana
The African jacana (''Actophilornis africanus'') is a wader in the family Jacanidae. It has long toes and long claws that enables it to walk on floating vegetation in shallow lakes, its preferred habitat. It is widely distributed in sub-Saharan A ...
African jacana
The African jacana (''Actophilornis africanus'') is a wader in the family Jacanidae. It has long toes and long claws that enables it to walk on floating vegetation in shallow lakes, its preferred habitat. It is widely distributed in sub-Saharan A ...
Birds of East Africa