Anhinga anhinga
(Linnaeus, 1766) · speciesAt a glance
Sources12 archives
Databases and archives Anhinga anhinga's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation16 languages↗
Animal Diversity WebUniv. of Michigan MZspecies account↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility1 483 618 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI9 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics9 specimens↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
GoaTGenomes on a Tree · Sangergenome & karyotype↗
NCBIUS National Library of Medicinegenome & karyotype↗
Paleobiology DatabasePBDB consortiumfossil record↗
WikidataWikimedia Foundationstructured facts↗
IOC World Bird ListIOCbird checklist↗Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
Female anhinga in Florida The anhinga (; Anhinga anhinga), sometimes called snakebird, darter, American darter, or water turkey, is a water bird of the warmer parts of the Americas. The word anhinga comes from the Brazilian Tupi language and means "devil bird" or "snake bird". The origin of the name is apparent when swimming: only the neck appears above water so the bird looks like a snake ready to strike. They do not have external nares (nostrils) and breathe solely through their epiglottis. The anhinga is placed in the darter family, Anhingidae, and is closely related to Indian (Anhinga melanogaster), African (Anhinga rufa), and Australian (Anhinga novaehollandiae) darters. Like other darters, the anhinga hunts by spearing fish and other small prey using its sharp, slender beak.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology13
Life cycle & reproduction8
Diet & foraging6
Habitat & environment4
Physiology & chemistry1
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Anhinga anhinga has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
The complete instruction manual Anhinga anhinga carries — its genome. We read it from three angles — how big it is, how the DNA is packed into chromosomes, and how completely it has been sequenced — and explain how to read each value as you go.
Genome sizehow big the whole instruction manual is
Measured in base pairs (bp) — the individual letters of DNA (human ≈ 3.2 Gb, a bacterium a few million). The chart places this genome on a logarithmic scale — each step to the right is ten times bigger — among reference organisms. Across species a bigger genome loosely tracks with larger cells, slower growth and lower-energy lifestyles (powered flight favours small genomes) — yet it does not imply more genes or a more advanced organism (the long-standing C-value paradox).
Sequencing statusassembly quality — how far to trust these numbers
Assembly level tells you how finished the sequence is — from fragmented contigs, through scaffolds, up to a full chromosome-level assembly. BUSCO % estimates completeness: the share of genes expected to be present that were actually found. These describe the data quality, not the organism.
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The solid bar is the fossil range: the span between the oldest and the youngest fossil that palaeontologists have assigned to Anhinga anhinga. Above itBeside it, each dot is one dated fossil find — few enough to count, so they are drawn individually rather than as a graph.
How it livedPBDB
Record type1 483 625 records
Origin
Range
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Cultivated / Captivenot free-living
A living individual in a botanical garden, zoo or nursery — cultivated or kept, not free-living.
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Holding institutions33 of 58 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| Ann Arbor, US | 36 |
| Ohio State University - Bird Division, Columbus, OH (OSUM)location not on record | 19 |
| Washington, US | 18 |
| US | 16 |
| Louisiana State University, Museum of Zoologylocation not on record | 15 |
| Iowa City, US | 12 |
| Seattle, US | 12 |
| München, DE | 12 |
| Cambridge, US | 12 |
| Los Angeles, US | 9 |
| Wuzhou, CN | 9 |
| Chicago, US | 9 |
| Museu Nacional/Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeirolocation not on record | 8 |
| Mongolian Museum of Natural Historylocation not on record | 7 |
| St. Paul, US | 6 |
| Tuxtla Gutiérrez, MX | 6 |
| Ciudad de México, MX | 6 |
| Albany, US | 6 |
| Moore Laboratory of Zoology, Occidental Collegelocation not on record | 6 |
| Denver, US | 6 |
| 5 | |
| Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural Historylocation not on record | 5 |
| Chicago, US | 5 |
| Copenhagen, DK | 5 |
| Tall Timbers Research Stationlocation not on record | 5 |
| Mexico City, MX | 4 |
| Texas Cooperative Wildlife Collectionlocation not on record | 4 |
| Ithaca, US | 4 |
| Mexico City, MX | 4 |
| Museo civico La Terra e l'Uomo di Crocetta del Montellolocation not on record | 3 |
| Washington State University, Charles R. Conner Museumlocation not on record | 3 |
| PROMIGAS S.A. E.S.P. (Promigas)location not on record | 3 |
| Tacoma, US | 3 |
| CASlocation not on record | 3 |
| South Kensington, GB | 3 |
| Chongqing Museumlocation not on record | 2 |
| Zacatecas, MX | 2 |
| Universidad Católica de Manizaleslocation not on record | 2 |
| Geneva, CH | 2 |
| Buenos Aires, AR | 2 |
| San Diego, US | 2 |
| Universidad de Antioquia (UdeA)location not on record | 2 |
| Universidad Industrial de Santander (UIS)location not on record | 2 |
| Instituto Tecnológico Metropolitanolocation not on record | 2 |
| Saint John, CA | 2 |
| Stockholm, SE | 1 |
| Delaware Museum of Nature and Sciencelocation not on record | 1 |
| Jurica-Suchy Nature Museumlocation not on record | 1 |
| Arizona State University Biocollectionslocation not on record | 1 |
| Philadelphia, US | 1 |
| Smithsonian Institutionlocation not on record | 1 |
| Musée des Confluenceslocation not on record | 1 |
| UNICAMPlocation not on record | 1 |
| Zografou, GR | 1 |
| Indiana State Universitylocation not on record | 1 |
| Vancouver, CA | 1 |
| Florida Museum of Natural History- Zoology, Paleontology & Paleobotanylocation not on record | 1 |
| Brussels, BE | 1 |
Cultivated / Captivenot free-living
A living individual in a botanical garden, zoo or nursery — cultivated or kept, not free-living.
Where the DNA of Anhinga anhinga was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Where its DNA was found
How strong is each trace?
Modelled climatemodelled
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.