Little heron


The little heron is a small heron, about 44 cm tall. It is mostly sedentary and frequents both fresh and salt water habitats. It is found in the Old World tropics from west Africa to Japan and Australia. The little heron was formerly considered to be conspecific with the striated heron.

Taxonomy

The little heron was formally described in 1804 by the Swedish naturalist Adam Afzelius based on a specimen collected in Sierra Leone, West Africa. He placed the new species with the herons in the genus Ardea and coined the binomial name Ardea atricapilla. The specific epithet is Latin meaning "black-haired". The little heron is now one of four species placed in the genus Butorides that was introduced in 1852 by the English zoologist Edward Blyth.
The little heron was formerly considered to be conspecific with the striated heron. A molecular phylogenetic study of the genus Butorides, submitted in 2023 as a master's thesis, found that the striated heron was paraphyletic. To resolve the paraphyly, twenty subspecies of the striated heron were moved to a new species, the little heron, making the striated heron a monotypic species restricted to South America.
Twenty subspecies are recognised:B. a. atricapilla – Africa south of the SaharaB. a. brevipes – Somalia and the Red Sea coastsB. a. crawfordi Nicoll, 1906 – Aldabra and Amirante groups B. a. rhizophorae Salomonsen, 1934 – ComorosB. a. rutenbergi – Madagascar and RéunionB. a. degens Hartert, EJO, 1920 – northeast SeychellesB. a. albolimbata Reichenow, 1900 – Chagos Archipelago and MaldivesB. a. amurensis – southeast Siberia, northeast China and JapanB. a. actophila Oberholser, 1912 – east China to north Myanmar and north VietnamB. a. javanica – Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka to Thailand, Philippines, the Greater Sunda Islands and SulawesiB. a. spodiogaster Sharpe, 1894 – Andaman and Nicobar Islands and islands off west SumatraB. a. steini Mayr, 1943 – Lesser Sunda IslandsB. a. moluccarum Hartert, EJO, 1920 – MoluccasB. a. papuensis Mayr, 1940 – northwest New GuineaB. a. idenburgi Rand, 1941 – north New GuineaB. a. flyensis Salomonsen, 1966 – central south, southeast New GuineaB. a. stagnatilis – coastal northwest, central north AustraliaB. a. macrorhyncha – east, northeast Australia and New CaledoniaB. a. solomonensis Mayr, 1940 – New Hanover Island to Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu to Fiji B. a. patruelis – Tahiti

Description

The little heron is in length, weighs and has a wing-span of. The sexes are alike. The plumage is vary variable, even sometimes within the same subspecies. Adults have a blue-grey back and wings, white underparts, a black cap, a dark line extends from the bill to under the eye and short yellow legs. Juveniles are browner above and streaked below. The two Australian subspecies B. a. macrorhyncha and B. a. stagnatilis are dimorphic, with grey and rufous morphs.

Distribution and habitat

The little heron is found in the Old World tropics from Sub-Saharan Africa to Japan and south to Australia. It inhabits both fresh water and salt water habitats, typically in mangroves but is also found in vegetation along rivers and streams.

Behaviour

Food and feeding

These birds stand still at the water's edge and wait to ambush prey. They mainly eat small fish, frogs and aquatic insects.

Breeding

The nest is hidden amongst shrubs or branches. The clutch of 2–5 eggs is incubated for 19-25 days. The chicks are covered with pale-grey down with white above. They fledge when they are around 5 weeks of age.