Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE STORK-LIKE BIRDS

THE CORMORANTS (Family Phalacrocoracidm)

This family is by far the largest of the order, containing, in fact, a greater number of species than all the others combined. It is also a very old family, for some ten fossil forms have been characterized, of which two are from the lower, and one from the middle, Miocene of France; the others, from later geological horizons, are reported from New Zealand, India, and North and South America.

In addition to these strictly fossil species, the largest species of the principal genus, Pallas's Cormorant, has probably been extinct for some fifty years. Another indication of the antiquity of the family is shown by the fact that one species — the recently described Harris's Cormorant — has been isolated in the Galapagos Islands for a sufficient length of time to have lost the power of flight. This interesting bird will be more fully described later.

This family embraces two genera, Phalacrocorax, the Cormorants or Shags as they are often called, with over forty species, and the monotypic Nannopterum, the Harris's Cormorant.

Their nearest of kin are the Anhingas, or Snake-birds, which have often been placed with them as a subfamily, but they differ from them in having a subcylindrical, strongly hooked bill with the cutting edges entire, instead of an elongated, simply pointed bill with serrated cutting edges. A further anatomical difference is found in the occipital style, this being large in the Cormorants and very feebly developed in the Anhingas. In both the feather covering is almost uninterrupted.

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