Spot-billed Pelican

• Its breeding is now confined to Sri Lanka, parts of south-eastern India and Cambodia, though historically it was seen in Java, Pakistan, Nepal, Turkey, Laos, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.
• Pelicans appear in Christian tradition as a symbol of maternal love and, in Islamic tradition, are said to have helped build the Kaaba in Mecca.
• It was described by Gmelin in 1789 from a specimen collected on the island of Luzon, in the Philippines, from which its epithet comes.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bird)

Habitat and environment

Lowland freshwater, brackish and marine wetlands of South-East Asia, mainly near open water and large shallow lakes. It submerges only slightly below the surface, never to any depth. In the breeding season it needs large trees, preferring bare or dead ones; in some areas it nests in large colonies close to human settlements

Gestation / incubation

30 - 36 days

Litter / clutch size

1-3 oval, white, rough-textured eggs, exceptionally up to 6. Incubation lasts 30-36 days. Hatching success in undisturbed pairs can reach 95%, but through sibling competition or cainism only one chick usually survives the first weeks in the wild; in this species the chicks survive longer than in the rest of the genus. Both parents feed them by regurgitation and, after a week, the chicks already put their heads into the adults' gular pouch to feed themselves

Sources consulted: IUCN Red List; BirdLife DataZone; Animal Diversity Web (McCubbrey, Kalamazoo College); Wikipedia (Spot-billed pelican); Brisson 1760; Gmelin 1789

Best time: All year round on the great lakes and wetlands of southern Asia

The pins mark the parks where its presence is documented.