Қабылдағыш мойынды су құстары

Genus of large water birds with a throat pouch

Pelicans (genus Pelecanus) are a genus of large water birds that make up the family Pelecanidae. They are characterized by a long beak and a large throat pouch used for catching prey and draining water from the scooped up contents before swallowing. They have predominantly pale plumage, except for the brown and Peruvian pelicans. The bills, pouches, and bare facial skin of all pelicans become brightly coloured before the breeding season. The eight living pelican species have a patchy, seasonally dependent yet global distribution, ranging latitudinally from the tropics to the temperate zone. Pelicans are absent from interior Amazonian South America, from polar regions and the open ocean; at least one species is known to migrate to the inland desert of Australia's Red Centre, after heavy rains create temporary lakes. White pelicans are also observed at the American state of Utah's Great Salt Lake, for example, some 600 miles (965 km) from the nearest coastline (the Pacific West Coast). They have also been seen hundreds of miles inland in North America, having flown northwards along the Mississippi River and other large waterways. Long thought to be related to frigatebirds, cormorants, tropicbirds, and gannets and boobies, pelicans instead are most closely related to the shoebill and hamerkop storks (although these two birds are not actually true 'storks'), and are placed in the order Pelecaniformes. Ibises, spoonbills, herons, and bitterns have been classified in the same order. Fossil evidence of pelicans dates back at least 36 million years to the remains of a tibiotarsus recovered from late Eocene strata of Egypt that bears striking similarity to modern species of pelican. They are thought to have evolved in the Old World and spread into the Americas; this is reflected in the relationships within the genus as the eight species divide into Old World and New World lineages. which is itself derived from the word pelekys (πέλεκυς) meaning "axe". In classical times, the word was applied to both the pelican and the woodpecker. The genus Pelecanus was first formally described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae. He described the distinguishing characteristics as a straight bill hooked at the tip, linear nostrils, a bare face, and fully webbed feet. This early definition included frigatebirds, cormorants, and sulids, as well as pelicans.

Pelicans are very large birds with very long bills characterised by a downcurved hook at the end of the upper mandible, and the attachment of a huge gular pouch to the lower. The slender rami of the lower bill and the flexible tongue muscles form the pouch into a basket for catching fish, and sometimes rainwater, They have a long neck and short stout legs with large, fully webbed feet. Although they are among the heaviest of flying birds, they are relatively light for their apparent bulk because of air pockets in the skeleton and beneath the skin, enabling them to float high in the water. Males are generally larger than females and have longer bills. the longest of any bird. The plumage of immature pelicans is darker than that of adults. Newly hatched chicks are naked and pink, darkening to grey or black after 4 to 14 days, then developing a covering of white or grey down. The air sacs serve to keep the pelican remarkably buoyant in the water and may also cushion the impact of the pelican's body on the water surface when they dive from flight into water to catch fish. Birds of inland and coastal waters, they are absent from polar regions, the deep ocean, oceanic islands (except the Galapagos), and inland South America, as well as from the eastern coast of South America from the mouth of the Amazon River southwards. although their scarcity and isolated occurrence suggests that these remains may have merely been vagrants from Australia (much as is the case today).

Pelicans swim well with their strong legs and their webbed feet. They rub the backs of their heads on their preen glands to pick up an oily secretion, which they transfer to their plumage to waterproof it. Hence, substantial energy is saved while flying. Adult pelicans rely on visual displays and behaviour to communicate, particularly using their wings and bills. Agonistic behaviour consists of thrusting and snapping at opponents with their bills, or lifting and waving their wings in a threatening manner. Adult pelicans grunt when at the colony, but are generally silent elsewhere or outside breeding season. Conversely, colonies are noisy, as chicks vocalise extensively. In all species, copulation takes place at the nest site; it begins shortly after pairing and continues for 3–10 days before egg laying. The male brings the nesting material, in ground nesting species (which may not build a nest) sometimes in the pouch, and in tree nesting species crosswise in the bill. The female then heaps the material up to form a simple structure. Sometimes before, but especially after being fed the pelican chick may seem to "throw a tantrum" by loudly vocalizing and dragging itself around in a circle by one wing and leg, striking its head on the ground or anything nearby and the tantrums sometimes end in what looks like a seizure that results in the chick falling briefly unconscious; the reason is not clearly known, but a common belief is that it is to draw attention to itself and away from any siblings who are waiting to be fed. but occasionally amphibians, turtles, crustaceans, insects, birds, and mammals are also eaten. The size of the preferred prey fish varies depending on pelican species and location. For example, in Africa, the pink backed pelican generally takes fish ranging in size from fry up to and the great white pelican prefers somewhat larger fish, up to , but in Europe, the latter species has been recorded taking fish up to Although all pelican species may feed in groups or alone, the Dalmatian, pink backed, and spot billed pelicans are the only ones to prefer solitary feeding. When fishing in groups, all pelican species have been known to work together to catch their prey, and Dalmatian pelicans may even cooperate with great cormorants. Pelicans in their turn sometimes snatch prey from other waterbirds. The Australian and American white pelicans may feed by low plunge dives landing feet first and then scooping up the prey with the beak, but they—as well as the remaining pelican species—primarily feed while swimming on the water. and "anything from insects and small crustaceans to ducks and small dogs". as well as crowned cormorants, kelp gulls, greater crested terns, and African penguins on Dassen Island and elsewhere. The Australian pelican, which is particularly willing to take a wide range of prey items, has been recorded feeding on young Australian white ibis, and young and adult grey teals and silver gulls. Brown pelicans have been reported preying on young common murres in California and the eggs and nestlings of cattle egrets and nestling great egrets in Baja California, Mexico. Peruvian pelicans in Chile have been recorded feeding on nestlings of imperial shags, juvenile Peruvian diving petrels, and grey gulls. Cannibalism of chicks of their own species is known from the Australian, brown, and Peruvian pelicans. The combined population of brown and Peruvian pelicans is estimated at 650,000 birds, with around 250,000 in the United States and Caribbean, and 400,000 in Peru. efn|The US government has not accepted the elevation of the two taxa into separate species. Numbers of brown pelican plummeted in the 1950s and 1960s, largely as a consequence of environmental DDT pollution, and the species was listed as endangered in the US in 1970. With restrictions on DDT use in the US from 1972, its population has recovered, and it was delisted in 2009. The Peruvian pelican is listed as near threatened because, although the population is estimated by BirdLife International to exceed 500,000 mature individuals, and is possibly increasing, it has been much higher in the past. It declined dramatically during the 1998 El Niño event and could experience similar declines in the future. Conservation needs include regular monitoring throughout the range to determine population trends, particularly after El Niño years, restricting human access to important breeding colonies, and assessing interactions with fisheries. The spot billed pelican has an estimated population between 13,000 and 18,000 and is considered to be near threatened in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Numbers declined substantially during the 20th century, one crucial factor being the eradication of the important Sittaung valley breeding colony in Burma through deforestation and the loss of feeding sites. The chief threats it faces are from habitat loss and human disturbance, but populations have mostly stabilised following increased protection in India and Cambodia. The pink backed pelican has a large population ranging over much of sub Saharan Africa. In the absence of substantial threats or evidence of declines across its range, its conservation status is assessed as being of least concern. Regional threats include the drainage of wetlands and increasing disturbance in southern Africa. The species is susceptible to bioaccumulation of toxins and the destruction of nesting trees by logging. The American white pelican has increased in numbers, However, whether its numbers have been affected by exposure to pesticides is unclear, as it has also lost habitat through wetland drainage and competition with recreational use of lakes and rivers. The Dalmatian pelican has a population estimated at between 10,000 and 20,000 following massive declines in the 19th and 20th centuries. The main ongoing threats include hunting, especially in eastern Asia, disturbance, coastal development, collision with overhead power lines, and the over exploitation of fish stocks. It is listed as near threatened by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as the population trend is downwards, especially in Mongolia, where it is nearly extinct. However, several European colonies are increasing in size and the largest colony for the species, at the Small Prespa Lake in Greece, has reached about 1,400 breeding pairs following conservation measures. Widespread across Australia, Overall population numbers fluctuate widely and erratically depending on wetland conditions and breeding success across the continent. The species is assessed as being of least concern.

Pelicans have been persecuted by humans for their perceived competition for fish, despite the fact that their diet overlaps little with fish caught by people. Great white pelicans on Dyer Island, in the Western Cape region of South Africa, were culled during the 19th century because their predation of the eggs and chicks of guano producing seabirds was seen to threaten the livelihood of the guano collectors.

DDT pollution in the environment was a major cause of decline of brown pelican populations in North America in the 1950s and 1960s. It entered the oceanic food web, contaminating and accumulating in several species, including one of the pelican's primary food fish – the northern anchovy. Its metabolite DDE is a reproductive toxicant in pelicans and many other birds, causing eggshell thinning and weakening, and consequent breeding failure through the eggs being accidentally crushed by brooding birds. Since an effective ban on the use of DDT was implemented in the US in 1972, the eggshells of breeding brown pelicans there have thickened and their populations have largely recovered. In the late 1960s, following the major decline in brown pelican numbers in Louisiana from DDT poisoning, 500 pelicans were imported from Florida to augment and re establish the population; over 300 subsequently died in April and May 1975 from poisoning by the pesticide endrin. About 14,000 pelicans, including 7500 American white pelicans, perished from botulism after eating fish from the Salton Sea in 1990. As waterbirds that feed on fish, pelicans are highly susceptible to oil spills, both directly by being oiled and by the impact on their food resources. A 2007 report to the California Fish and Game Commission estimated that during the previous 20 years, some 500–1000 brown pelicans had been affected by oil spills in California. Where pelicans interact with fishers, through either sharing the same waters or scavenging for fishing refuse, they are especially vulnerable to being hooked and entangled in both active and discarded fishing lines. Fish hooks are swallowed or catch in the skin of the pouch or webbed feet, and strong monofilament fishing line can become wound around bill, wings, or legs, resulting in crippling, starvation, and often death. Local rescue organisations have been established in North America and Australia by volunteers to treat and rehabilitate injured pelicans and other wildlife.

As with other bird families, pelicans are susceptible to a variety of parasites. Avian malaria is carried by the mosquito Culex pipens, and high densities of these biting insects may force pelican colonies to be abandoned. Leeches may attach to the vent or sometimes the inside of the pouch. A study of the parasites of the American white pelican found 75 different species, including tapeworms, flukes, flies, fleas, ticks, and nematodes. The brown pelican has a similarly extensive range of parasites. The nematodes Contracaecum multipapillatum and C. mexicanum and the trematode Ribeiroia ondatrae have caused illness and mortality in the Puerto Rican population, possibly endangering the pelican on this island. Many pelican parasites are found in other bird groups, but several lice are very host specific. In May 2012, hundreds of Peruvian pelicans were reported to have perished in Peru from a combination of starvation and roundworm infestation.

The pelican (henet in Egyptian) was associated in Ancient Egypt with death and the afterlife. It was depicted in art on the walls of tombs, and figured in funerary texts, as a protective symbol against snakes. Henet was also referred to in the Pyramid Texts as the "mother of the king" and thus seen as a goddess. References in nonroyal funerary papyri show that the pelican was believed to possess the ability to prophesy safe passage in the underworld for someone who had died. In Jewish dietary law, pelican is not considered kosher (fit for consumption), as it is a type of seabird and therefore considered an unclean animal. An origin myth from the Murri people of Queensland, cited by Andrew Lang, describes how the Australian pelican acquired its black and white plumage. The story tells that the pelican was once a black bird. During a flood, he made a canoe to save drowning people. He fell in love with a woman and decided to save her, but she and her friends tricked him and escaped. The pelican consequently began preparing to go to war against them by daubing himself with white clay as war paint. Before he had finished, another pelican, on seeing such a strange piebald creature, killed him with its beak, and all such pelicans have been black and white ever since. The Moche people of ancient Peru worshipped nature. They placed emphasis on animals and often depicted pelicans in their art. Alcatraz Island was given its name by the Spanish because of the large numbers of brown pelicans nesting there. The word alcatraz is itself derived from the Arabic al caduos, a term used for a water carrying vessel and likened to the pouch of the pelican. The English name albatross is also derived by corruption of the Spanish word.

The Physiologus, a didactic Christian text from the 3rd or 4th century, claims that pelicans kill their young when they grow and strike their parents in the face, but then the mother laments them for three days, after which she strikes her side and brings them back to life with her blood. The Physiologus explains this as mirroring the pain inflicted on God by people's idolatry, and the self sacrifice of Jesus on the cross which redeems the sinful (see the blood and water gushing from the wound in his side). supplementing the image of the lamb and the flag. This mythical characteristic is referenced in the hymn "Adoro te devote" ("Humbly We Adore Thee"), where in the penultimate verse, Saint Thomas Aquinas describes Christ as the loving divine pelican, one drop of whose blood can save the world. Similarly, the 1678 Christian allegorical novel The Pilgrim’s Progress describes how “the pelican pierce[s] her own breast with her bill to nourish her young ones with her blood, and thereby to show that Christ the blessed so loveth his young, his people, as to save them from death by his blood.”

Elizabeth I of England adopted the symbol, portraying herself as the "mother of the Church of England". A portrait of her called the Pelican Portrait was painted around 1573, probably by Nicholas Hilliard. The pelican is featured in many Christian artworks, especially in Europe. For example, the first (1611) edition of the King James Bible contains a depiction of a pelican feeding her young in an oval panel at the bottom of the title page. The self sacrificial characterization of the pelican was reinforced by widely read medieval bestiaries. The device of "a pelican in her piety" or "a pelican vulning (from Latin vulnerō, "I wound, I injure, I hurt") herself" was used in religious iconography and heraldry. Heraldic images featuring a "pelican vulning" refers to a pelican injuring herself, while a "pelican in her piety" refers to a female pelican feeding her young with her own blood. The King of Portugal John II adopted the pelican as is own personal sygil while he was Infante, evoking the christian symbology to equate the sacrifice of his blood to feed the nation. The pelican as a symbol also became synonymous with the increasing charity efforts of the Santas Casas da Misericórdia during his reign and the reconstruction of the Hospital das Caldas da Rainha and the Hospital Real de Todos os Santos, which were mainly patronaged by his wife D. Leonor. The image became linked to the medieval religious feast of Corpus Christi. The universities of Oxford and Cambridge each have colleges named for the religious festival nearest the dates of their establishment, and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, feature pelicans on their coats of arms. The medical faculties of Charles University in Prague also have a pelican as their emblem. The symbol of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service is a pelican, and for most of its existence the headquarters of the service was located at Pelican House in Dublin, Ireland. The heraldic pelican also ended up as a pub name and image, though sometimes with the image of the ship Golden Hind. Sir Francis Drake's famous ship was initially called Pelican, and adorned the British halfpenny coin.