Pelicans are unmistakable: huge waterbirds with a long bill and an enormous stretchy pouch hanging beneath it. The eight species are 4-6 feet (1.2-1.8 m) long with wingspans of 6.5-11.5 feet (2-3.5 m), and the great white and Dalmatian pelicans, at up to 33 lbs (15 kg), are among the heaviest flying birds in the world.
The Australian pelican pictured has the longest bill of any bird, up to 20 inches (50 cm). The pouch is not for storing food; it is a net that can hold 3 gallons (11 litres) of water, which the pelican drains before tipping the fish down its throat. Air sacs under the skin make pelicans extremely buoyant.
Pelicans live 15-25 years in the wild.
Pelicans live on coasts, estuaries, lakes and large rivers on every continent except Antarctica. The brown pelican of the Americas and the Peruvian pelican are strictly coastal; the others are just as at home on inland lakes. Australian pelicans turn up on remote desert lakes whenever rare rains fill them.
They nest in colonies on islands, sandbars and in trees.
Pelicans eat fish, with the occasional crustacean, frog or small bird. Most species fish together, swimming in a line or a horseshoe to herd fish into the shallows where they scoop them up. The brown and Peruvian pelicans instead plunge-dive from as high as 60 feet (18 m), folding their wings and hitting the water bill first.
Pelicans are strong, graceful fliers despite their size, soaring on thermals and travelling in long lines or V formations with slow, synchronised wingbeats, often skimming just above the waves.
They breed in colonies of hundreds or thousands of pairs. Chicks hatch naked and blind and are fed on regurgitated fish, reaching into the parent's pouch to feed.
The eight pelican species in the genus Pelecanus are the great white, Dalmatian, spot-billed, pink-backed, Australian, American white, brown and Peruvian pelicans. The IUCN lists most as Least Concern and the Dalmatian and spot-billed pelicans as Near Threatened.
The brown pelican is a conservation success story. The pesticide DDT thinned its eggshells and nearly wiped it out of the United States, but after DDT was banned it recovered and came off the endangered species list in 2009.
