Crab Plover | Dromadidae

Krabplevieren | Dromádidos

The family holds a single species, the Crab Plover, a striking black-and-white shorebird of Indian Ocean coasts. It breeds around the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa. Outside the breeding season it spreads down the East African coast to Mozambique and Madagascar, and it is rare farther south. Long grey legs, an upright stance and a bulky head make it look more like a small gull than a plover. Its defining feature is a heavy, black, dagger-shaped bill, used to crack crab shells, stab crabs apart or swallow smaller ones whole. It feeds on tidal flats, reefs and mangrove fringes, keeping to the rhythm of the tides. Much of that feeding happens at dusk and after dark. Its breeding is equally unusual. Birds nest in dense colonies on sandy islands, where each pair digs a burrow that can run well over a metre. At the end it lays a single white egg, something very few shorebirds do. The chick stays in the burrow for weeks and is fed by its parents, rather than feeding itself from hatching like most waders. Flocks keep up noisy, barking calls. DNA studies place the species near the coursers and pratincoles, but as a long-separate lineage.