Snowy Sheathbill (Chionis albus)
About the Snowy Sheathbill
The snowy sheathbill (Chionis albus), also known as the greater sheathbill, pale-faced sheathbill, and paddy, is one of two species of sheathbill. It is usually found on the ground. It is the only land bird native to the Antarctic continent. The snowy sheathbill was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it in a new genus Vaginalis and coined the binomial name Vaginalis alba. Gmelin based his description on the "white sheath-bill" that had been described and illustrated in 1785 by the English ornithologist John Latham
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We only publish recordings we may use commercially, because this site is supported by ads. xeno-canto lists 9 recordings for this species: 6 CC BY-NC-SA · 2 CC BY-NC-ND. None of them permits commercial use, so there is no player here — the page is kept as a profile so the bird is not missing from the guide.
As soon as someone uploads a freely licensed recording, we mirror it and the player appears here.
Listed as recorded in Antarctica, Argentina in the xeno-canto catalogue.
Other birds you can hear here
- Adelie PenguinPygoscelis adeliaerecording
These are the birds recorded alongside it, not close relatives — the site holds no other member of its genus or family yet.