Brolga
species of bird
The brolga (Antigone rubicunda), formerly known as the native companion, is a bird in the crane family. It has also been given the name Australian crane, a term coined in 1865 by well-known ornithologist John Gould in his Birds of Australia.
The brolga is a common, gregarious wetland bird species of tropical and south-eastern Australia and New Guinea. It is a tall, upright bird with a small head, long beak, slender neck, and long legs. Its plumage is mainly grey, with black wing tips, and it has an orange-red band on its head. The brolga's courting dance is similar to that of other cranes. The nest is built of wetland vegetation, either on an elevated piece of land or floating on shallow water in marshland, and usually two eggs are laid. Incubation takes 32 days, and the newly hatched young are precocial. The adult diet is omnivorous and includes plant matter, invertebrates, and small vertebrates.
Although the bird is not considered endangered over the majority of its range, populations are showing some decline, especially in southern Australia, and local action plans are being undertaken in some areas.
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The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as species of bird. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q926178. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1865.
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This entry incorporates text from “Brolga” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.