Anhinga

Fascinating facts about the Anhinga

• The anhinga lacks external nostrils and draws air only through its epiglottis using tiny opercula at the beak corners. It is a water bird that inhabits the warm parts of the Americas, often seen with only its long neck breaking the surface. This snake-like silhouette gave rise to its name, which means "devil bird" or "snake bird" in the Brazilian Tupi language.
• Only anhingas living at the extreme northern or southern limits of their range move seasonally, drifting closer to the equator during winter. Their migration is triggered by the amount of sunshine required to warm the chilled birds, so sunny days dictate when they travel. Occasionally individuals have been recorded far beyond their normal range, as far north as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and New York.
• Anhingas possess a distinctive kinked neck created by a specialised hinge between the eighth and ninth cervical vertebrae. This hinge allows them to keep the neck folded while swimming and then rapidly straighten it to spear fish with a swift thrust. The rapid neck extension is part of their underwater hunting technique, after which they surface to swallow the captured prey.
• The anhinga's skeleton is unusually heavy and its feathers become water-logged when it dives, giving the bird neutral buoyancy. This combination lets it sink completely beneath the surface rather than floating like many water birds. While submerged it propels itself with rapid kicks of its webbed feet, chasing fish and amphibians. Once the prey is seized the bird surfaces to swallow, completing a fully underwater hunting cycle.
• When an anhinga's plumage is saturated it loses the ability to sustain normal flight and instead flaps its wings with great effort while skimming the water's surface, a motion described as "running" on the water. This brief, frantic dash provides a quick escape from predators despite the heavy drag of wet feathers. Because their feathers stay wet, the birds must regularly spread their wings in the sun to dry and regain lift for ordinary flight.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.

• Wikipedia

At a glance

About the Anhinga

In the murky waters of its domain, the anhinga glides with serpentine elegance, its slender body undulating as it propels itself through the aquatic realm with powerful strokes of its tail. With eyes ever-vigilant, this fish-eating bird navigates the sun-dappled shallows, its feathers slick with water, as it pursues the unwary prey that dart through the vegetation. As it rises from the depths, the anhinga's wings beat slowly, casting a mesmerizing silhouette against the sky, a fleeting glimpse of a creature perfectly adapted to its mysterious and ancient world.

Anhinga photographed on Feravox

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