Crozet Shag
Leucocarbo melanogenis
An attractive Southern Ocean crested and pied cormorant with white wingbars, pinkish feet, orange-buff warty caruncles on the forehead, and a blue eye-ring. Juvenile is duller, lacking facial ornaments. Restricted to a handful of subantarctic islands, where it forages in inshore waters; uncommon resident on Prince Edward, Marion and Crozet islands, where it is the only cormorant. Call is a grunting wheeze.
Taxonomy
- Scientific name
- Leucocarbo melanogenis
- Authority
- (Blyth, 1860)
- Order
- Suliformes
- Family
- Phalacrocoracidae
- Genus
- Leucocarbo
Range and habitat
The Crozet shag is an island faring bird that is located primarily in the southern Atlantic and Indian Oceans in the region of sub-Antarctica. Common sightings of the Crozet shag occur on and around Prince Edward Island, Marion Island, and its native Crozet Island. These islands provide the shags with cliff tops and headlands from which to breed effectively and avoid strong coastal winds that have potential to disrupt and destroy potential nests. The Crozet shag is also able to maintain a wide-ranging diet of squid, octopus, molluscs, crustaceans and fish as a result of its heavily aquatic environment.[citation needed]
Behavior
The Crozet shag forages for food during the daytime in the benthic zone of the ocean. Female members of the species have been recorded as diving to a shallower depth than males, who can reach depths of about 50 m (160 ft) below the surface. This example of sexual dimorphism has been theorized to be because female shags will go after smaller prey than males. To make up for this, females are recorded as diving on average an hour more per day than their male counterparts.[citation needed]<p>Crozet shags are a diving bird in the cold polar waters, but they have little blubber and wettable feathers compared to penguins. Their dives are therefore much shorter, usually around one or two minutes. Crozet shags use a lot of energy for these dives because they are easily impacted by the cold ocean waters.[citation needed]
Photos
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