The laughing kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae) is a bird in the kingfisher subfamily Halcyoninae. It is a large kingfisher with a whitish head and a brown eye-stripe. The upperparts are mostly dark brown but there is a mottled light-blue patch on the wing coverts. The underparts are cream-white and the tail is barred with rufous and black. The plumage of the male and female birds is similar. The territorial call is a distinctive laugh that is often delivered by several birds at the same time, and is widely used as a stock sound effect in situations that involve a jungle setting.
The laughing kookaburra is native to eastern mainland Australia, but has also been introduced to parts of New Zealand, Tasmania, and Western Australia. It occupies dry eucalypt forest, woodland, city parks and gardens. This species is sedentary and occupies the same territory throughout the year. It is monogamous, retaining the same partner for life. A breeding pair can be accompanied by up to five fully grown non-breeding offspring from previous years that help the parents defend their territory and raise their young. The laughing kookaburra generally breeds in unlined tree holes or in excavated holes in arboreal termite nests. The usual clutch is three white eggs. The parents and the helpers incubate the eggs and feed the chicks. The youngest of the three nestlings or chicks is often killed by the older siblings. When the chicks fledge they continue to be fed by the group for six to ten weeks until they are able to forage independently.
A predator of a wide variety of small animals, the laughing kookaburra typically waits perched on a branch until it sees an animal on the ground and then flies down and pounces on its prey.Morcombe, Michael (2012) Field Guide to Australian Birds. Pascal Press, Glebe, NSW. Revised edition. Its diet includes lizards, insects, worms, snakes, mice and it is known to take goldfish out of garden ponds.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has classed the laughing kookaburra as a species of least concern as it has a large range and population, with no widespread threats.
Taxonomy
The laughing kookaburra was first described and illustrated (in black and white) by the French naturalist and explorer Pierre Sonnerat in his , which was published in 1776. He claimed to have seen the bird in New Guinea. In fact Sonnerat never visited New Guinea and the laughing kookaburra does not occur there. He probably obtained a preserved specimen from one of the naturalists who accompanied Captain James Cook to the east coast of Australia. Edme-Louis Daubenton and François-Nicolas Martinet included a coloured plate of the laughing kookaburra based on Sonnerat's specimen in their . The plate has the legend in French "" (Kingfisher from New Guinea).
In 1783, the French naturalist Johann Hermann provided a formal description of the species based on the coloured plate by Daubenton and Martinet. He gave it the scientific name Alcedo novæ Guineæ. The current genus Dacelo was introduced in 1815 by the English zoologist William Elford Leach, and is an anagram of Alcedo, the Latin word for a kingfisher. The specific epithet novaeguineae combines the Latin novus for new with Guinea, based on the erroneous belief that the specimen had originated from New Guinea. For many years it was believed that the earliest description was by the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert and his scientific name Dacelo gigas was used in the scientific literature, but in 1926 the Australian ornithologist Gregory Mathews showed that a description by Hermann had been published earlier in the same year, 1783, and thus had precedence. The inaccurate impression of geographic distribution given by the name in current usage had not by 1977 been considered an important enough matter to force a change in favour of D. gigas.
In the 19th century this species was commonly called the "laughing jackass", a name first recorded (as Laughing Jack-Ass) in An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales by David Collins which was published in 1798. In 1858 the ornithologist John Gould used "great brown kingfisher", a name that had been coined by John Latham in 1782. Another popular name was "laughing kingfisher". The names in several Australian indigenous languages were listed by European authors including Go-gan-ne-gine by Collins in 1798, Cuck'anda by René Lesson in 1828 and Gogera or Gogobera by George Bennett in 1834. In the early years of the 20th century "kookaburra" was included as an alternative name in ornithological publications, but it was not until 1926 in the second edition of the Official Checklist of Birds of Australia that the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union officially adopted the name "laughing kookaburra". The name comes from the Wiradjuri term "Gugubarra" , an endangered Aboriginal language.
The genus Dacelo contains four kookaburra species of which the rufous-bellied kookaburra and the spangled kookaburra are restricted to New Guinea and islands in the Torres Straits. The blue-winged kookaburra and the laughing kookaburra are both widespread in Australia.
Two subspecies are recognised: D. n. novaeguineae (Hermann, 1783) – the nominate subspecies, east Australia and introduced into Tasmania and southwest Australia D. n. minor Robinson, 1900 – Cape York Peninsula south to Cooktown
Description
The laughing kookaburra is the largest species of kingfisher, outsizing even the giant kingfisher in body mass. It is a stout, stocky bird in length, with a large head, prominent brown eyes, and a long and robust bill.Pizzey, Graham and Doyle, Roy. (1980) A Field Guide to the Birds of Australia. Collins Publishers, Sydney. The sexes are very similar, although the female is usually larger and has less blue to the rump than the male. The male weighs , mean and the female , mean .Woodall, P. F. (2020). "Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae), version 1.0." In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.laukoo1.01 They have a white or cream-coloured body and head with a dark brown stripe across each eye and more faintly over the top of the head. The wings and back are brown with sky blue spots on the shoulders. The tail is rusty reddish-orange with dark brown bars and white tips on the feathers. The heavy bill is black on top and bone-coloured on the bottom. The subspecies D. n. minor has a similar plumage to the nominate but is smaller in size.
The laughing kookaburra can be distinguished from the similarly sized blue-winged kookaburra by its dark eye, dark eye-stripe, shorter bill and the smaller and duller blue areas on the wing and rump. Male blue-winged kookaburras also differ in having a barred blue and black tail.
Call
The name "laughing kookaburra" refers to the bird's "laugh", which it uses to establish territory among family groups. It can be heard at any time of day, but most frequently at dawn and dusk.
This species possesses a tracheo-bronchial syrinx, which creates two sources of vibrations so it can produce two frequencies at the same time with multiple harmonics. The laughing kookaburras call is made through a complex sound production system, by forcing air from the lungs into the bronchial tubes. While the structure for producing calls is present from an early age, the kookaburra's song is a learned behavior. The breeding pair within a riot of kookaburra teach the fledglings to produce the signature laughing call after the young have left the nest. The adult male will sing a short portion of the call while the offspring mimics this call, usually unsuccessfully. The singing lessons tend to last two weeks before the fledgling can properly sing and take part in crepuscular choral songs. Once mastered, the young can join in crepuscular chorus songs that aid in establishing territory.
One bird starts with a low, hiccuping chuckle, then throws its head back in raucous laughter: often several others join in. If a rival tribe is within earshot and replies, the whole family soon gathers to fill the bush with ringing laughter. The laughing chorus has 5 variable elements: 1. "Kooa"; 2. "Cackle"; 3. "Rolling", a rapidly repeated "oo-oo-oo"; 4. Loud "Ha-ha"; followed by 5. Male's call of "Go-go" or female's call of "Gurgle".
Those calls are produced to attract/guard mates, establish and maintain the social hierarchy, and declare and defend a territory, as their calls are more often correlated with aggressiveness. Calls are utilized as neighbour/kin recognition to exhibit that groups are still inhabiting a territory. These calls also demonstrate to receivers that highly coordinated groups are of better quality and health. Acoustic communication between laughing kookaburras increases 2–3 months before the breeding season, September to January, because male aggression also increases.
The duetting call requires higher levels of cooperation within the group. The coordination of calls amongst kookaburras has been hypothesized to strengthen the main long-term pair bond and may have evolved as a mechanism to solidify the group's bonds since it is energetically costly to learn a new song. Neighbouring groups exhibit degrees of cooperation as well since chorus songs between neighbours are delivered without any overlap, alternating between groups.
Other forms of acoustic communication Squawking is another common form of acoustic communication in D. novaeguineae that is used in a slew of different contexts. Laughing kookaburras have been noted to squawk when nesting, exhibiting submissive behavior, and when fledglings are waiting to be fed. Laughing kookaburras have a greater repertoire of calls than other kookaburra species like the Blue-winged kookaburra (Dacelo leachii) that produces two simple types of calls: "barks" and "hiccups". This large range of calls is highlighted through cadencing, intonation, and frequency modulations that allow more detailed information to be conveyed.
Distribution and habitat The laughing kookaburra is native to eastern Australia and has a range that extends from the Cape York Peninsula in the north to Cape Otway in the south. It is present on both the eastern and the western sides of the Great Dividing Range. In the south the range extends westwards from Victoria to the Yorke Peninsula and the Flinders Ranges in South Australia.
It has been introduced into many other areas probably because of its reputation for killing snakes. In December 1891, the Western Australian parliament included 'Laughing Jackass' in the schedule of strictly preserved Australian native birds in the Game Bill, moved by Horace Sholl, member for North District. He described it as native of the North West.The Daily News, Perth, 22 December 1891, page 3, Legislative Assembly His nomination is, therefore, certainly a reference to the blue-winged kookaburra (Dacelo leachii), not the laughing kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae). The Game Act, 1892 (Western Australia), "An Act to provide for the preservation of imported birds and animals, and of native game," provided that proclaimed Australian native birds and animals listed in the First Schedule of the Act could be declared protected from taking. Laughing Jackass was one of 23 Australian native bird species named in the schedule.