Ranking of bird sand sculptures, this bird ranks second, who dares to rank first?

Recently, Weibo's hot searches have brought up another internet-famous animal - the shoebill [guàn].

The reason why it became popular is also very strong.

In the Kobe Animal Kingdom, in the pouring rain, it stood there firmly and unmoved with its stupidity.

However, its appearance really deserves the title of "the Husky among birds". It has the same temperament as the Husky and is just as silly and cute.

Let me first introduce its origin.

The so-called shoebill is a large bird very similar to the stork family. It is the only species in the genus Shoebill in the family Shoebill.

The name comes from its huge beak.

Here we have to mention its other nickname "shoe mouth", which at first glance looks like it was hit in the face by a Dutch wooden shoe.

In addition, its body length can reach 150 centimeters and its wingspan can reach 2.6 meters, making it a really big guy.

You may not feel it when watching a video, but if you really stand up to it, it is indeed a bit scary.

Because the shoebill mainly lives in the huge swamp areas of Sudan and Zambia in the tropical region of eastern Africa.

So the ones we see in other places are basically "international friends" (they can be a little proud of going abroad)

We all have some misunderstandings about the shoebill. Everyone says it's stupid, especially after seeing the video of it struggling to eat.... (It really makes people understand what it means to be endangered by strength)

But is this really the case? Does the shoebill have trouble eating with such a huge mouth?

Don’t just think that the shoebill is cute. The shoebill makes me want to laugh. (Thinking “What an ignorant human being”)

Now let's take a look at the true face of the shoebill. (First, a more fierce pose)

The shoebill is one of the top predators on the African continent.

It has the widest bird beak in the world, and it is extremely sharp, able to pierce the thick skin of crocodiles, so the shoebill has become one of the natural enemies of ferocious crocodiles.

They also prey on bottom-dwelling fish such as lungfish in large numbers.

So the question is, why in the video of the shoebill eating a small fish that was circulated online, the shoebill didn't eat the fish that was "captured"?

The truth is that the fish are too small! Yes, too small.

As mentioned earlier, the shoebill is a large bird. The main food of wild shoebill is stone lungfish, Senegal bipinnatus and various catfish.

They even prey on small crocodiles, the average length of which is over 40 centimeters.

The shoebill's huge beak and the hooked beak at the front can help it easily catch medium to large fish, but it cannot catch small fish.

Before the shoebill closed its mouth, the small fish had already slipped out from the gap between its mouth.

Furthermore, when raising and displaying animals in zoos, the viewing and fun aspects are also taken into consideration, so the difficulty of the animals' hunting behavior will be appropriately increased, which is also beneficial to the behavioral training of the animals.

All in all, the endangered status of the shoebill has nothing to do with its "stupidity"; the main reason is the destruction and reduction of its habitat caused by human activities, human interference and hunting.

In order to continue to see this "big guy" in the future, we need to work together to protect it.