Cranes

All 11 species of cranes on WAnimals

Each one has its own full profile. This group does not replace them: it brings them together.

Conservation status

Where they live

Recorded in 117 countries. The ones with the most species in the group:

Where to see them

Did you know…?

• A symbol of long life in Japan; the pairs perform a synchronised dance on the snow.

  From

• In Japan, China and Korea it has symbolised longevity and marital fidelity for more than a thousand years, and the tradition of folding a thousand origami cranes is inspired by it.

  From

• The Japanese population was given up for extinct until some thirty surviving birds were found in the Kushiro marshes on Hokkaido in 1924: today there are more than a thousand, thanks to winter feeding stations maintained by local farmers.

  From

• It flies in a V on migration, a formation that cuts drag and saves energy for the birds behind the leader.

  From

• The oldest crane fossil attributed to this species is some ten million years old, which would make it one of the oldest known living bird species.

  From

• Every March more than half a million of them gather along an eighty-kilometre stretch of the Platte River in Nebraska: it is the largest concentration of cranes in the world and one of the great natural spectacles of North America.

  From

• It was the last crane in the world to be described by science, in 1876, and the last whose eggs and nest were documented, as late as 1919.

Ecosystems