Sandhill Crane
Antigone canadensis
Sandhill Cranes are living fossils; a crane fossil found in Nebraska from 2.5 million years ago is skeletal-identical to the modern species.
- Scientific name
- Antigone canadensis
- Taxonomy
- Animalia › Chordata › Aves › Gruiformes › Gruidae › Antigone
- IUCN Red List status
- Least Concern
- Population trend
- increasing
- Biome
- wetland
- Habitat
- Freshwater marshes, wet prairies, and agricultural grain fields.
- Diet
- Omnivorous: seeds, grains, berries, tubers, insects, snails, and small vertebrates.
- Range
- North America, Canada, United States, Mexico, Siberia
- Size
- Height: 80-120 cm; Wingspan: 1.6-2.1 meters.
- Lifespan
- 20-30 years
- Active
- diurnal
- Threats
- Wetland degradation, loss of staging areas, and collisions with power lines.
- Safe to approach?
- Generally harmless but defensive during nesting. Maintain a distance of 20 meters. Do not feed, as it leads to dangerous habituation. If approached, they may hiss or bill-snap; back away slowly to give them space.
The sandhill crane ( Antigone canadensis ) is a species of large crane of North America and extreme northeastern Siberia. The common name of this bird refers to habitat like that at the Platte River, on the edge of Nebraska's Sandhills on the American Plains. This is the most important stopover area for the nominotypical subspecies, the lesser sandhill crane ( Antigone canadensis canadensis ), with up to 450,000 of these birds migrating through annually.
Photo: Matt Muir, CC-BY, via iNaturalist
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