In Uganda, East Africa, there is a murderous crocodile killer, but I didn't expect it to be a stupid-looking big bird that bows when you see people. Why can birds be natural enemies of crocodiles?
Those who can become natural enemies of crocodiles in nature are either huge in size and fierce in combat, or they have their own "plug-ins". Birds are the nemesis of fish, but birds that can subdue crocodiles are unheard of, but Uganda has a large bird that can hunt crocodiles. This strange-looking bird has a huge head, and is known as the "father of shoes" because its beak is very similar to the wooden shoes of the Dutch.
The "father of shoes" can reach a body length of 1.5 meters, weigh 4-7 kilograms, and have a wingspan of up to 2.6 meters, making it a solid large bird. It is also the largest bird in existence, because of the huge contrast between the head and the body, so its appearance looks very witty and stupid, and it is also known as the "husky of birds". This strange big bird is the whale-headed stork, and "pretending to be stupid and selling cute" is not the true face of the whale-headed stork, in fact, it treats its prey very fiercely and cruelly.
The whale-headed stork is a bird animal in the family Peliformes that resembles the head of a whale with a huge beak resembling the head of a whale, and the beak of the whale-headed stork is the widest beak in the world, up to 12 centimeters wide. The tip of the beak is curved into a hook and very sharp, and the edge of the tip is also hard and sharp like a fast knife, which can pierce the skin and flesh of the prey and clamp the prey with the upper and lower beaks and bring it to the shore.
Because the whale stork lives in the upper Nile River, as well as tropical lakes and swamps in East Africa, its diet is mainly swamp fish such as lungfish and six-whiskered catfish. However, locals stumbled upon a whale-headed stork preying on baby crocodiles, which shocked them. Unexpectedly, the whale-headed stork seems stupid and slow-moving, and can booby-trap baby crocodiles.
The whale-headed stork has a high endurance when hunting, and can stand on the shore and stare at the water for up to half a day, like a sculpture. As soon as it detects movement underwater, it immediately aims in the direction of its prey, and then launches a rapid beak strike, inserting its head straight into the water. However, when entering the water, the whale stork's "waterproof" eyes must be closed, so it sometimes catches by mistake because it cannot see the real situation in the water.
When it hunts baby crocodiles, it also uses this "static braking" trapping method. Inexperienced little crocodiles will think that the whale-headed stork standing at the water's edge is two wooden sticks and does not move for half a day, so they will relax their vigilance and swim next to the whale-headed stork. At this moment, the whale-headed stork will immediately dig its beak into the flesh of the baby crocodile, bite it and fly into the distance. The skin of the baby crocodile is not hard enough, and the whale stork's blade-like beak can instantly pierce its body, making it lose its ability to resist.
Although whale-headed storks are natural enemies of baby crocodiles, it is still impossible to attack adult crocodiles. The size and strength of adult crocodiles are deadly to any kind of bird. Therefore, whale storks can only kill some small crocodiles that fall behind, and they will not pose much threat to the crocodile population.
Although the whale-headed stork has great endurance and is surprisingly fast when hunting, it is slower than the elderly when eating. A small fish can peck for half an hour, and even eating a small crocodile takes ten minutes to shake off the aquatic plants on its body first, so as not to "affect the taste". If it weren't for its ferocious appearance when hunting, people would have been misled by its "husky in birds" appearance.
Since the whale stork became popular on the Internet, many countries have captured them and put them in zoos for people to see, and some people have even illegally caught them for private trading. These rampant actions have led to a decline in the number of whale-headed storks year by year, do you have to own any animal you like?
These originally free big birds have inexplicably suffered a "cage prison" because of their unique appearance. It is precisely because of the deliberate domestication of humans that the whale-headed stork loses its wildness and becomes a zoo "sculpture" that bows to people. #Whale Head Stork ##Animal##鲸头鹳能被称为 "Husky among Birds", is it true to its name?##野生动物 #
