Jacana - a strange bird with 'many legs'

On the quiet lake surface, suddenly a strange creature appeared, like a legendary multi-legged monster. However, what is more worrying is that some people have begun to question whether this strange creature is related to environmental pollution or nuclear radiation?

The African jacana bird really exists on our planet, and the legs they see are real (not fake).

The official name, Actophilornis africanu s, is a wading bird or wetland bird of the family Jacanidae, a species of bird found in sub-Saharan Africa in Africa.

Jacana bird foraging.

It is a medium-sized bird, with an estimated size of 23 to 31 cm, generally similar to many other common animals, with females being larger than males. The male weighs only 137 grams, but the female weighs 261 grams, which is a Jacana bird. Called the frog bird or chili bird by the Thai people because the jacana bird or water bird queen, a small bird with very long feet. There are a total of seven species found in swamps or swamps in tropical regions around the world. The African jacana bird lives in wetlands and eats crabs, fish and small aquatic animals for food and is usually only found on the African continent…

The uniqueness of this bird is the presence of dark stripes from the eyes, back of the head to the tips of the wings. But the color of the wings is dark brown. It has a blue beak that reaches the middle of its head and has long gray legs. The underside of its body is also dark brown. But before they mature, they are white and instead have dark brown stripes on their abdomen.

 In fact, the little legs hanging down are the legs of its children.

Jacanas engage in a rather unusual mating system called polyandry . That means the female mates with multiple males and entrusts them with the responsibility of taking care of the chicks. While the male is the protector of the chicks, the female protects the territory because she is much larger than the male.

But what is considered unique is its many legs . In fact, this bird has very slender legs and toes. And the claws on each finger are up to 7 cm long. This allows it to move on many species of aquatic plants, especially in shallow ponds with floating plants or piles of underwater plants by foraging in the area, eating insects or other animals. Small backbones for food

This bird has very slender legs and toes.

They also build floating nests in this area to breed during the breeding season. Females can mate with many males. It lays about four eggs in a nest and the eggs that hatch will have a person in charge until the babies grow up. Therefore, when looking for food in water sources like this, it must bring its children along . That's also the reason we see it has so many small extra legs, in fact those are its children's legs.

African Jacana (Actophilornis africanus) , known for its rich brown and white fur. In Australia we have the comb-crested Jacana (Irediparra gallinacea), found in freshwater wetlands in northern and eastern Australia, especially along the coast. Their range runs from the north-east Kimberley in Western Australia to the Cape York Peninsula then along the east coast to the Hunter region of NSW. Meanwhile, species with distinctive red markings on their foreheads are also found in New Guinea and Southeast Asia. Another large type of Jacana is the pheasant-tailed Jacana (Hydrophasianus chirurgus) , distributed throughout tropical India, Southeast Asia and Indonesia.