The detachment unites medium and large-sized aquatic birds that feed on fish. Only copepods among modern birds have a paw, all 4 fingers of which are connected by one membrane. The back finger is turned slightly forward and inward. Their legs are generally short, but may be strong, like those of pelicans and cormorants, or so weak, like those of frigatebirds, that they can neither walk on land nor swim.
In cormorants and darters, the legs are carried far back, which causes an almost vertical landing of the bird on the ground or on a tree. Beaks of copepods are varied. They are either straight, almost conical, sharp, or with a hook at the end, or, finally, wide, flattened, with a strongly extensible non-feathered skin throat pouch. The tails of copepods are also varied. In pelicans, the tail is short, rounded, soft, in cormorants and darters it is long, stepped, hard, in gannets it is long, wedge-shaped, in frigates it is forked, with greatly elongated extreme tail tails, and finally, in phaetons it is long, stepped, with elongated middle tail tails. The plumage is thick, stiff and (with the exception of pelicans) close to the body.
Australian Pelican (Pelecanus conspicillatus) Photo: Lip Kee
Down grows on both pterylia and apteria; apteria are narrow. In those species that cannot dive, there is a large pneumaticity of the skeleton, air cavities are present in almost all bones. There is also good network subcutaneous air sacs. Copepods have a very small vestigial tongue. Their esophagus and stomach are highly extensible, which allows them to swallow large prey. All copepods are monogamous birds, settling in colonies, often very large, sometimes together with other birds, such as herons. Colonies are located near the water, but in the most marine, but flightless birds. They dived well, and their wing turned into a kind of flipper. They lived on both sides of the Pacific Ocean in the northern hemisphere in the Upper Oligocene - Middle Miocene. The closest related detachment of copepods are tube-nosed.
Copepods inhabit the coasts of the oceans and seas, the shores of large rivers and lakes of almost the entire globe, with the exception of the polar regions. Representatives of 2 families are found in Russia: cormorants (6 species) and pelicans (2 species); the most numerous colonies of cormorants and pelicans are located on the coasts of the Caspian and Aral Seas; large cormorant colonies - in the Far East (Pacific coast).
Copepods feed mainly on fish. Cormorants and darters are great swimmers and divers; boobies and phaetons dive, throwing themselves into the water from a flight (they swim reluctantly); Pelicans are good swimmers, but they cannot dive. Pelicans, frigatebirds and boobies are capable of soaring. On the ground, most copepods move poorly. Nests are usually near the water (for cormorants - on trees and rocks; for pelicans - on reedy shallows). Copepods nest in large colonies.
Females and males incubate; the chicks hatch blind and naked and grow slowly. On some tropical islands, on the sites of colonies of copepods, deposits of guano are formed. In the south, cormorants in some places harm fisheries, in some places they are hunted in small numbers (meat is used).
In copepods, three front and fourth hind fingers, pointing forward, are connected by membranes. In other waterfowl, tube-noses, ducks, gulls, guillemots, loons, only three front fingers are webbed or, like grebes, trimmed with leathery plates. The tongue is small and underdeveloped. The esophagus and stomach, stretching, can accommodate a lot of fish.
Nests in trees, in rocks, on the ground. Monogamy. In pelicans, pairs are formed, apparently, for life. Females and males are similar in appearance, except for frigatebirds and darters. They incubate in turn. Cormorants - 23-25 days, pelicans - 30-40, phaetons and frigates - 40-50. The clutch contains one egg (frigatebirds and phaetons), 1-3 (gannets), 2-5 (pelicans) and 3-5 (cormorants). The type of development is chick. Sexual maturity at the 3-4th year of life. Young chicks are fed semi-digested food, and later fish. Pelicans - 3-4 months, phaetons - up to 5, and frigates - even 6-11 months. Frigate chicks do not leave their nests for 4-5 months.
Medium height, with a crow, and very large birds: 300 - 700 grams (phaetons) and up to 9-14 kilograms (pelicans). Wingspan up to 3.15 meters.
Copepods are widely distributed throughout the world. They live in colonies on the coasts of the oceans and seas, as well as fresh water bodies. Nests are built in trees, bushes, rocks or directly on the ground. Most copepods fly well, many use gliding and soaring flight. Some species of copepods swim and dive well. They feed mainly on fish, being a natural regulator of the fish herd.
All copepods are monogamous birds. Both parents take part in building nests, incubating eggs and feeding chicks. In a full clutch there are from 1 to 6 eggs. The chicks hatch naked and helpless, feeding on semi-digested food from their parents' mouths. They start nesting at 3-4 years of age.
Often on solitary offshore islands whole deposits of guano accumulate - bird droppings, which are ten times more effective than manure when used in agriculture. Guano is produced mainly by three types of copepods: the Peruvian cormorant, the Peruvian gannet, and the brown pelican.
There are six families in the order Copepoda
Pelicans: 7-8 species. Fresh waters and sea coasts of Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and America.
Cormorans or cormorants: 25-30 species. Fresh waters and sea coasts of countries of almost the whole world.
Phaetons: 3 types. Islands and coasts of the tropics and subtropics.
Gannets: 9 species. Islands and coasts of the temperate zones of the North Atlantic, the extreme south of Africa, Australia, tropical islands.
Frigates: 5 types. Islands and coasts of the tropics and subtropics around the world.
Ankhings or ankhings: 2 species. The American Anhinga lives in the fresh waters of the far south of the United States, Central and South America and the Ankhing of the Old World in Africa, India, Indo-China, Indonesia, and Australia.
This family includes birds that have a dense valky body and a long neck. The beak is of medium length, in some cases cylindrical with a pronounced hook at the end (subfamily of cormorants), in others straight and pointed (subfamily of darters). The legs are short, carried far back, the tail is long, the wings are short, wide, rounded at the end. The plumage is mostly black with a metallic sheen. In some species, the underside of the body is white.
Representatives of the family inhabit the shores of inland freshwater reservoirs, as well as the seas. They nest in a variety of conditions, placing their nests on rocks, trees, in reeds, just on a flat area of the coast. Chicks are born blind and naked, only subsequently covered with down. At the age of 7-8 weeks, the young begin to fly.
Cormorants change plumage twice a year. At the beginning of the year, an incomplete, prenuptial molt occurs. Complete, post-marital molt begins at the very beginning of summer and lasts until late autumn.
The main food of cormorants is fish, which they get by diving.
The family has a very wide, cosmopolitan distribution. Migratory birds inhabiting temperate and cold latitudes; species and populations inhabiting hot countries are sedentary.
The family is divided into 2 subfamilies: cormorants(Phalacrocoracinae) with 2 genera and 26 species (in addition, 31 fossil species and 1 species extinct in the last century) and darters(Anhinginae) with 1 genus and 1 species (another 6 fossil species).
Cormorant(Phalacrocorax carbo) - a large bird: it weighs about 3 kg, its wing length is 33-38 cm. Females are only slightly smaller than males. An adult bird has black plumage with a metallic greenish-violet sheen and wide dark blue borders of some groups of feathers on the upper side of the body. On the underside of the head there is a wide white half-ring. The bare parts of the head are yellow, the bare ring around the eye is greenish-brown. The legs are black, the beak is brownish black. At mating time, elongated thin feathers appear on the back of the head, a large white spot appears on the sides of the belly above the lower leg.
The great cormorant is very widely distributed. It is found for nesting in Europe (to the north to the Kola Peninsula), in Asia (to the north no further than northern Kazakhstan and Baikal). Its nesting area goes from Asia south to Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand. It breeds in many places in Africa, of course, except for the Sahara. In the western hemisphere, the great cormorant breeds only in Greenland, although not so long ago it also inhabited northeastern North America. In the northern and southernmost (New Zealand) parts of its range, the great cormorant - migrant, in warm latitudes, he leads a sedentary lifestyle. In the Soviet Union, cormorants can be found in winter only in the most southern parts of the country: in the Crimea, Transcaucasia, Turkmenistan, etc. Cormorants winter in the Mediterranean, North Africa south to the Cape Verde Islands. In South Asia, they lead a sedentary lifestyle.
Cormorants appear early on nesting sites in our country, with the first warming, for example, in the Volga delta sometimes even in February, more often, however, in March. In the event of a return of cold weather, cormorants fly back. In Western Europe, they sometimes appear even in January, most often in February.
Great cormorants are monogamous birds, they fly to nesting places already in pairs, which are formed in them, apparently, for life. Most birds start nesting for the first time at the age of 3 years, some even later - at four or even five years of age. Still immature two-year-olds still return to their native colony and stay there together with adult nesting birds.
Cormorants always nest near ponds rich in fish. It can be rivers, lakes, seashores. There are many cormorants in the deltas of large rivers. It is even surprising how varied the places where the cormorant can make a nest. In many cases, these are trees. However, in treeless areas, cormorants nest in the creases of reed beds. Often nests can be found in coastal cliffs and rocks. Sometimes cormorants arrange nests on a flat piece of land. For example, in the Aral Sea there is a small uninhabited island of Komsomolsky, on this island there is a shallow lake, and in this lake there are flat sandy islands on which cormorants nest in large numbers - thousands of pairs. Sometimes they nest on very small islands near the coastal cliffs of the sea.
Having chosen a place suitable for placing a large colony, cormorants adhere to it for decades and in many cases for centuries. But if the place does not offer any special advantages over the neighboring ones, and the feeding conditions are the same everywhere, nesting places may change. In the trees, cormorants sometimes capture the nests of herons, but usually they make their own nests.
When building a nest, the cormorant first makes its base from thicker sticks and large branches, then lays thinner, often even green branches with leaves above. The result is a turret with a height of 50 to 100 cm. These turrets are often located close to each other, and if they are made on a small saxaul tree, then a large multi-celled mound is obtained, from which dry branches of a dead tree stick out in places. Both parents build the nest and, apparently, on an equal footing, sometimes the male is more diligent in carrying building material. Early in the morning groups of birds fly out for nesting material. It happens that they take a fancy to only one of a tree, thickly seeding which branches and leaves together cut off. As a rule, in one flight the bird brings only one branch in its beak. On occasion, the cormorant does not hesitate to pull a branch from someone else's nest.
During April, May, June, eggs are laid. In Western Europe, there are cases when birds laid their eggs in August - September. There is one clutch per year, and only if it is ruined, there can be a new, additional one.
In a full clutch, there are usually 5 eggs of an oval-elongated shape, of a pale brownish-green color. Recognizing this color, however, is difficult, as the top of the eggs is contaminated with a thick layer of droppings. Egg sizes vary, but the average is 64 X 39.5 mm. In almost every clutch you can find an egg that differs sharply from others in small size. In a number of colonies, it was noted that in clutches, especially those containing 5-6 eggs, one of them is unfertilized.
Both members of the nesting pair incubate the eggs. The duration of incubation, according to observations in the Volga delta, is 28-29 days. In Western Europe, the periods of incubation are shorter - 23-24 days.
Sometimes the timing of the onset of incubation can be influenced by local conditions. In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, for example, tree-nesting cormorants have been observed to start laying eggs about 2 weeks earlier than ground-nesting cormorants. The latter are delayed by the snow cover that has not yet completely descended by that time.
The chicks hatch naked and blind. Their eyes open on the 3-4th day, and at the age of about 2 weeks a thick brownish-black fluff grows. At the same time, flight and tail feathers begin to grow. At about seven weeks of age, young cormorants leave the nest. However, they tend to get out of the nest much earlier, and then climb the branches or wander around the nest. At the age of 12-13 weeks, young birds become completely independent. After that, cormorants first stray into small flocks and roam not far from nesting sites. Then the flocks become larger and the departure begins.
In the Caspian Sea in the second half of summer, a curious phenomenon of birds migration to the north is observed. Cormorants nesting on the eastern coast of the sea fly along this coast with delays on the Mangistau Islands to the northern shores of the sea, almost to the Volga delta, and only later, having fattened up in the fish-rich areas of the fore-delta, they fly south, now along the western coasts of the sea.
Cormorants can swim, dive excellently, fly not so badly, but do not resort to soaring flight. On the ground, cormorants are held almost vertically and walk with some difficulty.
Cormorants are real ichthyophages. Their food is fish, different in different places. In our waters, cormorants eat gobies, roach, etc. In other places, cormorants eat herring, and on occasion they can grab a young sturgeon. Very rarely in the stomach of a cormorant one can find, apparently, mollusks, insects, amphibians and even some plants that have accidentally got there. In the Danube Delta, a completely unusual phenomenon was observed: cormorants grabbed and swallowed swallows flying low over the water.
Where there are many cormorants, it is easy to observe their collective hunting for fish. During the hunt, the noise is unimaginable: the flapping of wings, the constant splash of water, the croaking. Birds dive, emerge, flap their wings at the same time, the rear birds fly over the flock to its “head”, overtaking others, and those that have become rear are in a hurry to become front again. This flock seeks to keep up with the shoal of fish pursued by it. And then you can see cormorants calmly sitting on the shore with open wings. They dry their plumage. Previously, cormorants hunted for fish together with non-diving pelicans.
The daily food allowance for cormorants has been variously estimated, but in many books it has been exaggerated. Now we can consider it established that the average daily food intake is 300-400 g of fish. Special studies show that the harm from cormorants is not as great as it might seem at first glance. However, cormorants should not be allowed to breed excessively. In the Astrakhan Reserve, therefore, the number of cormorants is annually regulated. In this matter, a gray crow provides a good help to a person. She, one might say, circles the cormorant around her finger. The crow sits very close to the incubating bird and "taunts" it, as if trying to attack. The cormorant is stronger than the crow. He aims to hit her with his beak, and he almost succeeds. The crow, however, is intrusive, and the cormorant finally rises to its feet to deal the final blow to it. The crow only needs this. She calmly flies off to the side, while her partner, who was quietly guarding the cormorant from behind, picks up an egg from under the carelessly raised bird with its beak and flies away with it.
Cormorants change plumage twice a year. They have a complete molt in summer, it begins even during nesting, in May, ends in September - October. Incomplete molting occurs during wintering, in December - January. During this molt, the white feathers of the wedding dress grow in the birds.
Cormorant meat is edible but tough. It must be cooked for a long time, after removing the skin. Young birds are more tender, and
fishermen, going fishing, stop by available nesting sites in order to pick up chicks that have already grown up.
The smallest cormorant is called the small cormorant (Ph. pygmaeus). Its weight is about 800 g. In addition to its small size, it is also well recognized by the presence of brown drop-shaped spots on the ventral side of the body. Breeds on the Balkan Peninsula and in Asia Minor. In the USSR, it breeds in the Crimea, in some places on the Caspian and Aral Seas and at the mouth of the Ili River.
The flightless Galapagos cormorant (Nannopterum harrisii) lives in the Galapagos Islands. Its dimensions are large, and the wings are underdeveloped and unsuitable for flight. It is curious that this bird, unlike its flying counterparts, does not dry its wings after a long dive.
Perhaps the largest cormorant is Steller's cormorant(Phalacrocorax parspicillatus), named after the naturalist Steller,
who first discovered this bird on Bering Island in 1774. There used to be a lot of birds there. Its numbers quickly declined, and in the 80s of the last century, the Steller's cormorant disappeared. We do not have exact information, but, apparently, the Steller's cormorant could not fly.
darters differ sharply from cormorants in having a straight, pointed bill, a longer neck, and a longer tail. They live exclusively in inland freshwater bodies of water. In the subfamily of darters, there are 4 species of birds belonging to the same genus.
At the Indian darter(Anhinga melanogaster) the plumage color is dark, sometimes brown, sometimes almost black with a transverse jet pattern. The throat is lighter. From the eye along the neck on both sides there is a white stripe. The shoulder feathers are long and pointed. The tail is long, hard, stepped.
The Indian darter inhabits South Asia from India to Sulawesi. It adheres to fresh water - rivers, lakes, reservoirs. Rarely found by the sea in the estuaries of large rivers.
This is a social bird, all seasons of the year it keeps in large groups and often joins in common flocks with cormorants, with which (as well as with herons) it often forms joint colonies.
Darter nests are placed in trees and used for a number of years. Clutch contains 3-4 oval-elongated eggs. Egg laying occurs at different times, depending on the timing of the onset of monsoons: in some cases in January - February, in others - from July to August.
Darter is an exceptionally good swimmer and diver. Usually she slowly swims so that the body is submerged under water and only the head and neck are visible from the outside. The neck is constantly bending from side to side and twisting, which is very similar to the movements of a snake. Noticing the fish, the bird dives after it, and if the fish is caught, and usually it happens, then, emerging, the darter throws the prey into the air and then swallows it. After a long dive, the bird sits on a tree and, spreading its wings wide, dries them.
Cormorant - detachment Copepods, Cormorant family
Great cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus). Habitat - North America Wingspan 1.3 m Weight - 1.2-2.5 kg
More than twenty types of cormorants. The English name for the cormorant is "cormorant", which means "greedy", "glutton". Although the daily norm for the great cormorant is only 300-400 grams of small fish, such an unseemly name is explained, obviously, by the ardor with which a flock of cormorants pursues prey.
white-tailed phaeton
Phaeton - detachment Copepods, Phaeton family
White-tailed phaeton (Phaethon lepturus). Habitat - Tropics of the Pacific and Indian Oceans Wingspan 0.9-1 m Weight 0.3-0.4 kg.
In Greek mythology, Phaeton is the son of Helios, the sun god. These birds are also children of the sun: they are distributed only in tropical latitudes and spend most of their lives above the waves of the ocean. Phaetons - fly well, not resting for a long time.
Darter
Darter - detachment Copepods, family Serpentine
American Darter (Anhinga anhinga). Habitat - North and Central America. Wingspan 1.17 m Weight 1.4 kg
The long necks of the darters really look like snakes. There are only four types of birds. All are lightly colored. The plumage is decorated only with white streaks on the back and on the upper part of the wings.
Gannet
Gannet - detachment Copepods, family Gannets
Northern Gannet (Sula bassana). Habitat - North Atlantic Wingspan 1.5 m Weight 3-3.5 kg
Gannets are excellent anglers. For months they can live in the open sea. The reproductive instinct drives them back to shore.
Pelican - detachment Copepods, Pelican family
Red-billed pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos). Habitat - North America Wingspan 2.5-3 m Weight 4.5-9 kg
They live in shallow water bodies, where it is easier for them to get food - fish. Many species hunt collectively, driving prey aground, deftly picking it up with a net-like beak and placing it in throat pouches.
The detachment unites medium and large-sized aquatic birds that feed on fish. Only copepods among modern birds have a paw, all 4 fingers of which are connected by one membrane. The back finger is turned slightly forward and inward. Their legs are generally short, but may be strong, like those of pelicans and cormorants, or so weak, like those of frigatebirds, that they can neither walk on land nor swim. In cormorants and darters, the legs are carried far back, which causes an almost vertical landing of the bird on the ground or on a tree.
Beaks of copepods are varied. They are either straight, almost conical, sharp, or with a hook at the end, or, finally, wide, flattened, with a strongly extensible non-feathered skin throat pouch. The tails of copepods are also varied. In pelicans, the tail is short, rounded, soft, in cormorants and darters it is long, stepped, hard, in gannets it is long, wedge-shaped, in frigates it is forked, with greatly elongated extreme tail tails, and finally, in phaetons it is long, stepped, with elongated middle tail tails.
The plumage is thick, stiff and (with the exception of pelicans) close to the body. Down grows on both pterylia and apteria; apteria are narrow.
In those species that cannot dive, there is a large pneumaticity of the skeleton, air cavities are present in almost all bones. There is also a good network of subcutaneous air sacs.
Copepods have a very small vestigial tongue. Their esophagus and stomach are highly extensible, which allows them to swallow large prey.
All copepods are monogamous birds, settling in colonies, often very large, sometimes together with other birds, such as herons. Colonies are located near water, but in a wide variety of conditions. Nests are built in trees, bushes, rocks, reed beds or directly on the ground. Both the male and the female build them, incubate the eggs and feed the chicks.
eggs at different types in a full clutch there are from 1 to 6. The chicks hatch naked, blind and helpless. After a few days, their eyes open and thick fluff appears. Parents feed the chicks semi-digested food. To get a burp, the chicks put their beak and head into the mouth of their parents.
The postembryonic period is quite long - in pelicans, for example, 50-60 days. They start nesting at the age of 3-4 years.
Most copepods fly well. Many use soaring and gliding flight. Dive, and sometimes even swim, some copepods cannot. Other species swim and dive well. Phaetons, boobies and frigatebirds live exclusively on the seas and oceans. The rest of the copepods live both in the seas and inland fresh water bodies.
The consumption of large quantities of fish by cormorants, pelicans and other copepods has always attracted human attention. Fishermen in many parts of the world consider them their competitors. However, special studies using fish marking have shown that these birds primarily catch sick and dead fish. Therefore, nothing can replace these birds as a natural regulator and healer of the fish stock. In addition, in some areas, the value of the guano produced by copepods is many times greater than the value of the fish they consume.
On secluded sea islands, millions of cormorants, gannets and pelicans produce a huge amount of droppings, which accumulate in multi-meter layers. This is the famous guano, which for many years served as the main nitrogenous fertilizer for the lands of Western Europe and North America. The use of guano made it possible to dramatically increase crop yields.
On small islands near Peru, for example, where the total number of nesting copepods is now estimated at about 35 million, guano deposits reached a thickness of 30 m. Even the ancient Incas knew well the value of this treasure. They used guano to fertilize their fields. The nesting sites of copepods were carefully guarded, and for visiting them at the forbidden time, the offender was subject to the death penalty. Subsequently, after the destruction of the Inca culture by the Spaniards, guano was forgotten. Only at the beginning of the last century, the famous Alexander Humboldt opened it to the rest of the world. Guano is 33 times more effective than manure. The plunder of guano reserves began, accompanied by an exceptionally large-scale destruction of the nesting colonies of guano-forming birds. Fleet after flotilla went to the islands from Europe and the USA, and at the beginning of our century it turned out that the nesting sites were cleaned, one might say, to the stone.
In 1909, a semi-state, semi-private society was organized in Peru, which took care of the bird islands. Without the permission of society, no one dared to appear on them. Nothing should interfere with the nesting of birds. Aircraft were forbidden to fly over the islands at an altitude below 500 m. Fishing was prohibited near the islands. Ships were not allowed to sound their horns near the islands. Some peninsulas in the quiet places of the coast of Peru and Chile were turned into islands, and new colonies were formed. The real master's care for the deceased began; it was a value that fully justified itself. In the bird colonies, they began to "harvest" guano every two years between April and August, when the chicks had already left the nests.
Basically, 3 species of copepods create deposits of guano off the South American islands. These are the Peruvian cormorant, or guanay, the Peruvian gannet and the brown pelican. In 1950, the islands produced almost a quarter of a million tons of guano, not a single kilogram of which was exported. Thanks to this fertilization, the lean soils of Peru now yield more than 320 kg of cotton per hectare, while, for example, in Louisiana (USA) the cotton yield is 55 kg per hectare, in ARE a little over 70 kg per hectare.
A lot of guano is also mined off the coast of South Africa, where its main producers are 2 species of copepods - the Cape cormorant, the Cape gannet, and the spectacled penguin. For the nesting of the Cape cormorant, special platforms have been built there for more than 50 years. The total number of nesting Cape cormorants in the late 70s. was about half a million. Moreover, this species is endemic to southern Africa.
The copepod order as a whole has a cosmopolitan distribution. It includes 56 species of birds belonging to 6 families: phaeton(Phaethontidae), pelicans(Pelecanidae), gannet(Sulidae), cormorants(Phalacrocoracidae), serpentine(Anhingidae) and frigate(Fregatidae).
Extinct genera of modern families of frigatebirds, phaetonids, pelicans, and darters have been known since the Lower Oligocene. True gannets appear from the Oligocene, cormorants - from the Lower Miocene. The detachment of copepods includes 2 more peculiar extinct families. Family false teeth(Odontopterygidae) were giant gliding birds with a wingspan of 4-6 m. They had teeth on the jaws formed by bone outgrowths. They were widely distributed throughout the world, from Antarctica to Great Britain and Transcaucasia, from the Lower Eocene to the Pliocene. To the family flat-winged(Plotopteridae) also included large sea, but flightless birds. They dived well, and their wing turned into a kind of flipper. They lived on both sides of the Pacific Ocean in the northern hemisphere in the Upper Oligocene - Middle Miocene.
The closest related detachment of copepods are tube-nosed.
a brief description of detachment
The detachment of copepods is made up of birds of large and medium sizes with a variety of body shapes. Pelicans reach the largest sizes. The weight of a curly pelican reaches 13 kg, body length - up to 1800 mm, wingspan - up to 3000 mm, wing length - up to 770 mm. The smallest sizes are in phaetons (not represented in our fauna), which are equal in size to the gray gull. In our fauna, the smallest representative of the copepods is the small cormorant. Its weight is 800 g, body length reaches 550 mm, wing length - up to 200 mm. Males are larger than females, especially among pelicans.
beaks various forms: in some birds (pelicans) it is very long, 4-5 times the length of the head, strongly flattened, especially in the apical half, and ending in a hook sharply bent down. Others (cormorants, frigatebirds) have a long beak, but not exceeding twice the length of the head and not flat. The mandible is concave in the middle part and ends, as in pelicans, with a hook sharply bent down. The rest of the copepods - gannets, phaetons, darters - have a conical beak, slightly curved down in the apical half, but without an apical hook. The nostrils are not through (the exception is the phaetons). In pelicans and phaetons, the external openings of the nostrils are normally developed; in cormorants and frigatebirds, these openings are greatly reduced, while in gannets they are completely absent. Ramfoteka is complex, consisting of several horny plates, but in old birds they usually merge into a monolithic horny cover. The nostrils are not through (with the exception of the phaetons).
Plumage in copepods it is thick (with the exception of pelicans), hard and close to the body. There is usually no side stem of feathers (only frigatebirds have a poorly developed side stem). The down evenly covers the entire body, being distributed both among the pterylae and apteria. The apteria are poorly developed: the dorsal and ventral apteria are represented by narrow stripes, except for pelicans, which have one dorsal apteria. The coccygeal gland is well developed and feathered. Many species have elongated decorative feathers on their heads, forming crests, which develop mainly in mating season. They appear in December-January and disappear in June-July. Some birds, for example, the curly pelican, have elongated feathers not only on the head, but also along the upper side of the neck, forming a “mane”, while in darters, such feathers are also on the back. On the head, neck, and in cormorants sometimes on the body, white lanceolate or teardrop-shaped feathers appear during the mating season. The front parts are bare to varying degrees and only the phaetons are completely feathered. There is a throat pouch, especially extensible and reaching enormous sizes in pelicans. This bag, excluding the phaetons, is naked or partially feathered.
Coloring the plumage is usually dark, often black with a metallic sheen, or white with a pink or gray bloom. Primary flight feathers are always dark. Sexual dimorphism there is no plumage in the coloration, with the exception of frigates; but there are large seasonal and age variations. Some species, such as cormorants, wear their wedding attire for a very long time - up to six months or more. Young birds only in the 3rd or 4th year of life put on a full adult outfit. The downy outfit of the chick is dark in some species, light in others. Adult birds usually have two molts a year: partial (pre-nuptial) and complete (post-nuptial). The change of flight feathers occurs gradually, so that birds do not lose their ability to fly, with the exception of darters, in which all flight feathers immediately fall out, and birds cannot fly for some time. There are 11 primary primaries, and only gannets have 10. The wing is aquintocubital. The wing formula is very diverse.
Tail consists of 12-24 tail feathers of various shapes and lengths. In pelicans, the tail is short, rounded, soft and consists of 20-24 tail feathers; in cormorants and darters, the tail is long, stepped and consists of 12-14 hard tail feathers; in gannets it is long, wedge-shaped and is formed from 12-18 rudders; in frigates - forked, the extreme pair of helmsmen is greatly elongated and has only 12 feathers; the phaetons also have 12 rudders, but one middle pair is greatly elongated.
The tarsus is short, especially in frigatebirds and phaetons, and only in frigatebirds is feathered, in other members of the order it is naked, usually reticulated. The back finger is on the same level with the other fingers and points forward. All four fingers are connected by a swimming membrane.
The legs of well-diving and swimming species (cormorants, darters) are displaced far back, as a result of which, when walking and sitting, their body occupies almost vertical position. In pelicans and gannets, the legs are located closer to the middle part of the body. The legs of the frigatebird are so weak, short and with underdeveloped swimming membranes that it moves with difficulty on land and in water. In phaetons, the legs are weak and short, but with a complete swimming membrane; they hardly move on land, but they can swim.
Anatomical features. Skull holorhinal, transitional type between schizognathic and desmognathic, with the exception of the phaetons; basipterygoid processes are not developed. The opener is available only in phaetons and frigates, while the rest of the representatives of the detachment are not developed. The skull is characterized by a strong development of ridges that serve to attach well-developed chewing and cervical muscles. The number of cervical vertebrae varies in different members of the order. Frigatebirds and phaetons have 14-15, gannets and pelicans have 16, cormorants have 12, and darters have 19-20. The cervical vertebrae in most species (gannets, darters, cormorants, etc.) are adapted due to the special design of their articular surfaces for a sharp push forward when grasping prey. So, the anterior part of the neck can only bend forward, the middle part can bend backward, and the last part forward again. Thus, when the bird is calm, the neck assumes an S-shaped position.
The shape of the thoracic vertebrae is different: in cormorants and gannets it is opisthocoelous, while in phaetons and frigatebirds it is heterocoelous. The sternum of cormorants, pelicans, frigatebirds is wide, almost square. Pelicans are somewhat wider than long; in gannets it is rather narrow and strongly elongated. In good diving birds, such as cormorants, gannets and others, the angle of connection of the ribs with the sternum is sharper than in non-diving or poorly diving birds. This connection of the ribs with the sternum allows good diving birds to breathe more freely under water. The connection of the sternum with the fork is different: in pelicans and frigatebirds, there is a complete fusion between these bones, and in frigatebirds, the fork is immobilely fused with the coracoid bones. Other species have a movable connection of the clavicle with the sternum with the help of connective tissue ligaments. The pelvis in species that dive well, for example, gannets, is strongly elongated, in pelicans, frigates and phaetons it is short and wide, in cormorants it is of medium length.
Skeleton it is pneumatic, the pneumaticity of the skeleton is especially developed in pelicans, gannets and frigatebirds, in which there are air cavities in almost all bones. In cormorants and other species diving and swimming under water, the pneumaticity of the skeleton is weakly expressed: only a few bones have air cavities. Pelicans, gannets, and phaetons have a well-developed network of subcutaneous ramifications of the air sacs, which form an air-bearing layer, which is especially pronounced on the ventral surface of the body.
The nasal glands are poorly developed, the salivary glands are completely absent. The language is rudimentary. The esophagus, glandular and muscular stomach are easily stretched, which allows the bird to swallow large prey. The glandular stomach contains a very large number of digestive glands, as well as a pyloric section. The intestine is long, the cecum is usually rudimentary, only in pelicans they reach 50 mm in length. Digestion and absorption of food is fast.
The carotid artery in cormorants, frigates and phaetons is steam room, in pelicans and darters - only one left; in gannets - right. The circulating muscle is present in cormorants, gannets and frigatebirds; it is absent in pelicans and phaetons. The pectoralis major muscle usually consists of two layers. The exceptions are cormorants and phaetons, in which this muscle consists of only one layer. Body temperature from 39.7° to 42.2°.
Lifestyle. Copepods are diurnal birds closely associated with water, mainly with the seas and oceans, and to a lesser extent with inland waters. They settle mainly on the coasts: either rocky or covered with trees or reeds.
Most species fly excellently, and some are able to soar (pelicans, boobies, frigatebirds); in phaetons and cormorants, the flight is active, rowing. All of them swim well, with the exception of the frigate. Some species dive well and swim underwater, such as cormorants. Gannets, phaetons and brown pelican P. occident alts dive into the water from the expansion; pelicans and frigates do not dive at all and hardly rise into the air from a flat surface.
food copepods are mainly fish; darters also feed on aquatic invertebrates. The ways of obtaining food are very diverse: pelicans, with the exception of the brown pelican, capture fish with their beak, like a scoop, swimming in shallow water; cormorants - diving from the surface of the water and swimming under water; gannets, phaetons and a brown pelican - rushing from a flight into the water and plunging at the same time to a rather great depth. Frigatebirds catch fish swimming close to the surface of the water, or flying fish; sometimes they take prey from other birds. Pelicans and cormorants often fish in flocks, sometimes independent, and sometimes uniting in common flocks.
copepods usually nest in colonies and even outside the breeding season, they often stay in flocks. Colonies are always placed near water. Nests are arranged in trees, bushes, rocks, on the ground among reed beds, on floating islands, etc. Even in the same species, there is great variation in the location of nests. Birds occupy the same nests for a number of years. The breeding period - incubation and feeding of chicks is long and takes 3-4 months.
Socket device very simple. building material branches, branches, algae, reeds, etc. serve. The nest is small, with a small amount of soft lining in the tray. Some species of gannets and phaetons do not build nests at all, but lay their eggs directly on the ground without bedding. In places where nests of copepods are located, a large amount of bird droppings accumulate. Drying on the surface, the litter cements the nests.
Eggs in a clutch pelicans usually have 2-4, cormorants and darters 3-6, frigatebirds and phaetons 1, and gannets 1-2. Eggs, relative to the size of birds, are small, uniform bluish or greenish, covered with a thick calcareous layer. Phaetons have colorful eggs. Both parents participate in building the nest, incubating and feeding the chicks.
Hatching period in cormorants 28-30 days, in pelicans - 33-40 days. The chicks hatch completely helpless - naked and blind. The eyes open on the 3-5th day, on the 5-8th day fluff begins to appear, which in a few days densely covers the entire body of the chick. At first, the parents feed the chicks with semi-digested food, which they regurgitate directly into their mouths. The water brought by the parents also pours into the chick's mouth. Chicks feed 2-3 times a day, quickly gain weight, and usually by the end of feeding they reach the weight of their parents and even exceed it. Nursing period in cormorants it lasts 40-45 days, in pelicans and gannets - 50-60 days. By this time, the chicks have almost completely put on the first outfit and are able to fly. Some species, such as gannets, give up feeding the chicks long before they take to the wing.
After the end of the nesting period, young and old birds gather together and roam, sometimes moving away from nesting for long distances. But only pelicans can be considered real migratory birds. Cormorants partly fly away, partly migrate from their nesting places to areas of non-freezing waters where fish can be caught. Northern gannet species, like cormorants, are semi-migratory, semi-nomadic birds. Most species of copepods are sedentary.
Geographic distribution. Copepods inhabit the sea and ocean coasts and islands of all parts of the world; in a small number of species live in inland freshwater reservoirs and rivers. The largest number of species is found in the subtropics and tropics, only certain types in the Arctic and Antarctic. Among copepods, there are a large number of species with a narrow distribution. Species with a wide distribution usually have huge gaps in their range.
Of the 54 species of copepods in the CIS, 11 are found, of which 8 are nesting and 3 are accidentally vagrant, a total of 20.4%. The species nesting here belong to the pelican family (2 species) and to the cormorant family (6 species); and stray - 2 to the gannet family (northern gannet and red-footed booby) and 1 to the frigate family (great frigatebird). The phaeton family is not represented at all in our fauna.
The distribution of copepods for nesting in our country is as follows: I - zone of the Arctic, subzone of the coast - Phalacrocorax pelagicus, Phalacrocorax aristotelis aristotelis, Phalacrocoraxcarbo carbon, Phalacrocorax urile goes beyond the subzone (Commander Islands); II - zone of open dry spaces, subzone of steppes (lake part of Western Siberia and Kazakhstan) and subzone of semi-desert and desert (reservoirs) - Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis, Phalacrocorax pygmaeus, Phalacrocorax aristotelis desmarestii, Pelecanus crispus and Pelecanus onocrotalus and III - mountain zone, high-mountain boreal-alpine subzone - Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis.
Practical value. In some places, copepods cause harm to fisheries by eating fish of commercial importance, mostly of medium size. Birds that inhabit freshwater reservoirs are especially harmful. Fresh copepod meat is not tasty, but canned it is quite suitable for eating. Their skins are dressed and go to the market as "bird fur", suitable for small warm things (collars, caps, hats, etc.).
Large concentrations of birds on land during the breeding season in a dry climate contribute to the accumulation of guano, which is of great importance as a fertilizer. Huge accumulations of guano are found on the coast of Peru between 5 ° and 19 ° S. sh., in Patagonia, along the shores of the Caribbean Sea and on the islands off the western coast of South Africa. The accumulations of guano belong mainly to the American brown pelican. Pelecanus occidentalis, cormorant Phalacrocorax bougainvillei and gannet Sula variegata.
Fossils(there are 47 known species) copepods are found in Europe, Asia, North and South America, Australia and on the islands of Sumatra and Mascarene. Species close to modern pelicans have been described from the Upper Oligocene of France, the Eocene of England, the Cretaceous and Eocene of Yugoslavia. An extinct pelican is described in the CIS from the vicinity of Odessa from the Lower Pliocene Pelecanus odessanus. Representatives of phaetons, frigates, boobies, darters and cormorants, already close to modern species are known from the Pleistocene. The genus gannets stood out in the Oligocene and is most richly represented in the Miocene of South America. The cormorant genus has been known since the beginning of the Pliocene. The darter was found in a fossil state in the Pliocene of Hungary - Anchinga pannonica.
The genus is described from the CIS Pliocarbo, close to cormorants, found in excavations near Odessa in Pontic limestones of the Lower Pliocene. Steller's cormorant became extinct in the middle of the last century. Phalacrocorax perspicillatus, who lived settled on about. Bering. In 1741, according to the description of Steller, who first discovered this cormorant, it was numerous on the island, and in 1883 there was not a single bird here. Probably, extermination by humans, and also, possibly, the emergence of a strong epizootic, served as the death of these birds. The Steller's cormorant SPAL is much larger than the great cormorant: the length of the beak reached 95 mm, the dimensions of short, poorly developed wings did not exceed 360 mm. The latter circumstance makes it possible to assume that the Steller's cormorant flew worse than living cormorants.
References: G. P. Dementiev, N. A. Gladkov, E. S. Ptushenko, E. P. Pangenberg, A. M. Sudilovskaya. Birds Soviet Union. Volume I, Moscow, 1951