NATURAL HISTORY · CATALOGUE RECORD
Boat-billed Heron
Cochlearius cochlearius (Linnaeus, 1766)
Source-backed taxonomic record
Accepted species in Catalogue of Life’s 11 September 2026 base release. This preserves the source classification and available supporting data; it is not a completed species monograph.
Open encyclopedia reference
The boat-billed heron (Cochlearius cochlearius), colloquially known as the boatbill, is an atypical member of the heron family. It is the only member of the genus Cochlearius and was formerly placed in a monotypic family, the Cochleariidae. It lives in mangrove swamps from Mexico south to Peru and Brazil. It is a nocturnal bird, and breeds semi-colonially in mangrove trees, laying two to four bluish-white eggs in a twig nest.
Wikipedia contributors, Boat-billed heron; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T06:14:01.386209+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.
Identity & source status
- Scientific name
- Cochlearius cochlearius (Linnaeus, 1766)
- Name authority
- (Linnaeus, 1766)
- Common name
- Boat-billed Heron
- Rank
- species
- Accepted status
- accepted
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Class
- Aves
- Order
- Pelecaniformes
- Family
- Ardeidae
- Genus
- Cochlearius
- Extinction status
- Recorded extant
Classification family tree
Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.
- domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
- kingdomAnimalia
- phylumChordata
- subphylumVertebrata
- infraphylumGnathostomata
- parvphylumOsteichthyes
- megaclassTetrapoda
- classAves
- orderPelecaniformes
- familyArdeidae Leach, 1820
- genusCochlearius Brisson, 1760
- speciesCochlearius cochlearius (Linnaeus, 1766)
Close classified relatives
No other member of this genus is present in the selected snapshot.
Names & synonyms
Names explicitly linked to this accepted taxon in the source. Synonymy can change with revision.
| Recorded name | Source status |
|---|---|
| Cancroma cochlearia Linnaeus, 1766 Linnaeus, 1766 | synonym |
| Cochlearius cochlearia (Linnaeus, 1766) (Linnaeus, 1766) | synonym |
Documented distribution
Source distribution statements, not a complete range map. A listed locality is not necessarily a place of origin.
South America
Source literature & publication evidence
References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.
- https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=174873 Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references
Origins, evidence & remaining research
Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.
Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record. A suitable sourced image remains to be added.
Dataset citation & attribution
This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11
Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.
Stable key: col:WN29. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.