Shoebill

The hunting method is called collapsing: the bird topples its entire body forward onto prey, taking in fish, vegetation and water together, then discards everything it does not want. The bill is deep, sharply keeled, and tipped with a hook that holds a thrashing lungfish long enough to swallow it. Between attempts a shoebill may not move for a quarter of an hour.

It needs papyrus swamp with permanent water and low disturbance, which is precisely the habitat being drained for rice and grazing across South Sudan, Uganda and Zambia. Chicks are also taken for private collections. Population estimates sit somewhere between 3,300 and 5,300 mature birds, spread thinly across wetlands that are individually easy to lose.