Snowy egret

"Snowy heron" redirects here. For the 1958 Japanese film, see The Snowy Heron.

Snowy egret
Temporal range: Late Pleistocene-recent
0.126–0 Ma
↓
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Pelecaniformes
Family: Ardeidae
Genus: Egretta
Species:
E. thula
Binomial name
Egretta thula
(Molina, 1782)
Range of E. thula
  Breeding range
  Year-round range
  Wintering range
Synonyms
  • Ardea thula[2]
  • Leucophoyx thula[2]
A Snowy Egret Catches a fish

The snowy egret (Egretta thula) is a small white heron. The genus name comes from Provençal French for the little egret, aigrette, which is a diminutive of aigron, 'heron'. The species name thula is the Araucano term for the black-necked swan, applied to this species in error by Chilean naturalist Juan Ignacio Molina in 1782.[3]

The snowy egret is the American counterpart to the very similar Old World little egret, which has become established in the Bahamas. At one time, the plumes of the snowy egret were in great demand as decorations for women's hats.[4] They were hunted for these plumes and this reduced the population of the species to dangerously low levels.[5] Now protected in the United States by law, under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, this bird's population has rebounded.

  1. ^ BirdLife International (2016). "Egretta thula". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2016: e.T22696974A93595536. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22696974A93595536.en. Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  2. ^ a b Egretta thula at Fossilworks.org
  3. ^ Jobling, 2010, p.143, 385
  4. ^ Saikku, Mikko (Autumn 1990). "The Extinction of the Carolina Parakeet". Environmental History Review. 14 (3): 9–10. doi:10.2307/3984724. JSTOR 3984724. S2CID 155475716.
  5. ^ "Snowy Egret: Life History". All About Birds. TheCornellLab. Retrieved 29 March 2019.