# Anatomy of a Kookaburra

By Vincent

Topic: Nature & Biology

[Open the interactive Jig](https://ask.jig.com/j/ByyOVGqhZ7lA)

## Guide

### 1. Meet the kookaburra

This is a laughing kookaburra, the Australian bird whose loud call sounds like a burst of laughter\. Step by step, we will look at it from its heavy bill to its barred tail\. Drag anywhere to turn the scene\.

Its scientific name is Dacelo novaeguineae\.

### 2. A giant kingfisher

Kookaburras are kingfishers, and the laughing kookaburra is the biggest kingfisher in the world\. From bill tip to tail tip it measures about 45 centimetres\. Yet it weighs only about a third of a kilogram\.

Unlike many kingfishers, it rarely eats fish\. It hunts insects, worms, lizards, frogs and even small snakes on land\.

### 3. A dagger of a bill

The bill is long, straight and deep at the base, up to about 10 centimetres\. The top half is dark and the bottom half is pale cream, with a small hook at the tip\. The bird sits and waits on a perch, then drops down and grabs its prey in this strong bill\.

Bigger prey is knocked against a branch before being swallowed whole\.

### 4. Big head, dark mask

A big, flat\-topped head sits on a short neck\. A dark brown stripe runs through each eye like a mask, and the pale crown is finely streaked\. The eyes themselves are dark brown\.

Its cousin, the blue\-winged kookaburra, has pale eyes and no dark mask\.

### 5. A flash of blue

Folded, the wings look mostly brown, with a patch of sky\-blue feathers at the shoulder\. Spread them to see the white patch at the base of the long flight feathers\. From wing tip to wing tip, a kookaburra spans about 60 centimetres\.

Males often have more blue on the lower back than females\.

### 6. A barred tail

The long tail is rusty orange, crossed by dark bars and tipped with white\. It makes up about a third of the bird's length\. In flight, the tail helps the bird steer and slow down\.

### 7. Feet for perching

The legs are short and the small feet are yellowish\. Like other kingfishers, two of its front toes are joined for much of their length, which may give it a stronger grip on a branch\. A kookaburra can sit very still for a long time, watching the ground below\.

### 8. The famous laugh

The laugh is not a joke\. It is a loud call that tells other kookaburras that this place is taken\. Family groups often call together in a chorus, mostly at dawn and dusk\. Press Laugh to see the head tip back and the bill open\.

Young kookaburras learn the laugh by copying the adults\.

### 9. A family at home

Kookaburras usually stay with one partner and keep the same territory all year\. Older young often stay to help feed new chicks, which hatch from about three white eggs in a tree hollow\. So a laughing chorus is a family saying: we live here\.

Eggs hatch after about 24 to 26 days\.