ction to catch it.
Although it speeds off, the octopus is no match for the cormorant, which uses its hooked bill to catch and hold its prey.
The cormorant returns to the water’s surface and maneuvers the octopus by tilting back its head and gulping it down.
Breeding occurs throughout the year, but peaks from March to September. Unlike most cormorants, which begin courtship on land, the flightless cormorant starts its mating display on the water. This aquatic dance, which includes neck raising and bill movements, occurs from 10 days to 6 weeks before egg laying; the pair bonds at the nest site just before mating.
The female lays from 1-4 eggs in a large nest made of seaweed. Both sexes share incubation duties; the eggs then hatch after about 35 days. Born naked and helpless, chicks are fed regurgitated food by the parents and fledge at about 60 days. Relatively few chicks survive to adulthood, though: breeding success is low due to predators, such as feral dogs, which kill chicks and eat eggs.
The chicks start to swim after one month.
The flightless cormorant has been classified as vulnerable by the IUCN. This species has suffered tremendous declines with the introduction of predatory mammals such as feral dogs. These dogs now pose the biggest threat to nesting birds. The flightless cormorant is also accidentally killed in traps and nets used for catching lobsters and tuna. The population is estimated to be around 900-1,200 individuals.
With an extremely limited range, the flightless cormorant has undergone several adaptations. The mild climate of the Galapagos means it doesn’t need to migrate south in the winter; with abundant food nearby it doesn’t travel great distances to eat; and predators for many centuries were few. Thus, over time, the wings of this cormorant have become greatly reduced and are now about the size of penguin flippers. While the flightless cormorant has totally lost the power of flight, it has become a skilled swimmer and developed stronger feet than other cormorants. On land, the flightless cormorant waddles clumsily due to the shortness of its legs and its large, webbed feet; underwater it is swift and graceful.
A Noisy neighbors
The flightless cormorant associates in small colonies of up to 12 breeding pairs and their offspring.
The guanay cormorant (Phalacrocorax bougainvillii) has a much wider range than its flightless cousin. It lives along the Pacific coast of South America from Peru to Chile and on the Atlantic coast of Argentina. Although the guanay cormorant can fly, it lives entirely in a marine environment and feeds mainly by diving, much like the flightless cormorant The guanay cormorant feeds entirely on fish, such as sardines. Reaching a length of 30″ and a weight of 7 lbs., the guanay cormorant is much smaller than its flightless cousin.
|Weight Length||5.5-9 lbs. 35-40″|
|Sexual Maturity||2 years|
|Breeding Season||All year, but mainly March -September|
|Number of Eggs||1-4; usually
|Incubation Period||About 35 days|
|Fledging Period||About 60 days|
|Breeding Interval||Usually 1 year, but may breed twice per year ;|
|Typical Diet||Fish, eels, squid and octopus|
• The flightless cormorant belongs to the order Pelecaniformes, which contains tropicbirds, pelicans, gannets, boobies, darters and frigatebirds. There are65 species in the order, but the cormorant family, Phalacrocoracidae, is the largest, with 39 species in only 1 genus. Relatives include the great cormorant, Phalacrocorax carbo and the bank cormorant, P. neglectus.