Wild Facts About The Anhinga

Quick Facts About Anhingas

Scientific Name	Anhinga anhinga
Common Name(s)	Anhinga, Snakebird, Darter, American Darter
Animal Type	Water Bird
Diet	Primarily fish. Occasionally, Anhingas may take aquatic insects and crustaceans.
Found	Anhingas migrate to North Carolina for the summer and are found only along the coast. Look for them in freshwater ponds and swamps with thick vegetation and tall trees.
Description	Anhingas are large birds that grow to 36 inches (91 cm) with wing spans up to 3.5 feet (Tekiela 2001). Males: Black feathers with silvery streaks and greenish iridescence; silver to white spots on upper back and wing coverts. During mating season, the skin around male Anhingas’ eyes turns a beautiful, bright, rich turquoise. Females: Black body and wing feathers; buff head, neck, and breast feathers. Both sexes: Long, flexible, S-shaped neck. Small head bearing a long, very sharp, pointed yellow beak. Webbed feet can be either yellow or black. Black tail is tipped in white.

Anhinga Images

Anhinga. Anhinga anhinga. Bird. Photograph taken by the author. Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder. All rights reserved.

Anhinga. Anhinga anhinga. Bird. Male during breeding season. Photograph taken by the author. Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder. All rights reserved.

Anhinga. Anhinga anhinga. Bird. Female. Photograph taken by the author. Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder. All rights reserved.

Anhinga with large fish. Anhinga anhinga. Bird. Photograph taken by the author. Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder. All rights reserved.

Anhinga with fish. Anhinga anhinga. Bird. Photograph taken by the author. Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder. All rights reserved.

Fun Facts About Anhingas

You’ll Want To Look Twice At Anhingas In The Water

People also call Anhingas “Snakebirds” because of how they appear when paddling through water.
Anhingas hunt by diving beneath the water surface and skewering fish on their sharp beaks.
Unlike many other water birds, like ducks, Anhinga feathers don’t repel water and the Anhingas themselves are not as buoyant.
- These birds sit very low in the water; their bodies submerge and only their heads and long necks poke above the water’s surface.
- From a distance, Anhingas can resemble sinuous water snakes.

Stealthy Anhingas Sneak Up On Their Food

Anhingas eat mostly fish and have adapted to a slow, stealthy, underwater hunting method.
- Many water birds, like Mallard Ducks (Anas platyrhynchos), Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) and Brown Pelicans (Pelicanus occidentalis) have a special oil gland that helps their feathers repel water.
- Anhingas lack this gland so can submerge and remain underwater easily to hunt fish.
- Anhingas ambush their prey rather than pursue it. They prowl through and around dense aquatic vegetation and stab fish with their sharp beaks.
Compared to a more common, foot-propelled diving bird found in North Carolina, the Double-Crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus), Anhingas are less buoyant underwater (Pecsics and Csorgo 2023, https://doi.org/10.2478/orhu-2023-0023). This adaptation lets them move slowly once submerged and avoid startling fish.

Anhingas Hit The Bulls-Eye

Anhingas may swim slowly underwater but they strike at fish extremely quickly, thanks to several adaptations.
First, Anhingas have excellent eyesight, especially underwater.
- They can locate fish in water with poor visibility, like swamps and lakes with dense vegetation.
- A study that researched the visual fields of 5 extant and 1 extinct foot-propelled diving birds found that Anhingas had the narrowest horizontal binocular visual range (Pecsics and Csorgo 2023, https://doi.org/10.2478/orhu-2023-0023).
- Anhingas’ vision may be better adapted to help them position their bills precisely for stabbing, rather than helping them keep prey in sight during active pursuit.
Second, these birds can snap their long, strong, flexible necks forward very quickly and precisely.
- Their vision and their neck musculature coordinate to move and target their beaks in space with pinpoint precision.
Third, Anhingas bear beaks that are perfectly adapted for spearing fish.
- Their beaks are pointed, with extremely sharp tips, and easily pierce the soft bodies of their fish prey.
- Serrations along the edges of the mandibles stabbed fish from slipping away.
Once they spear a fish, Anhingas rise to the water’s surface, flip the fish off their beaks into the air, and swallow the fish whole and head-down.

Female Anhingas Can Be Territorial Too

Male Anhingas are known to be very territorial birds. But female Anhingas defend their space and resources at times as well.
Scientists in Brazil observed a resident female Anhinga intercept another female Anhinga who intruded within approximately 50 meters of the resident bird’s foraging area.
- The resident Anhinga was hunting for fish near a bridge from which people were throwing bread for the fish and waterfowl.
- The resident female paddled and swam toward the intruder, flapped her wings, and gaped her sharp beak in an aggressive display.
- In response, the intruding Anhinga dove under the water and swam away.
- The resident female Anhinga repeated her aggressive interaction whenever the intruding female tried to enter the foraging area again.
- While the resident female was tending to two nestlings near the foraging area, the scientists deemed her aggressive behavior to be due more to protecting a rich foraging site than nestling defense. Fish were drawn to the water surface by the bread the humans were tossing in, which likely helped the resident female hunt (Sazima and D’Angelo 2012, https://doi.org/10.1676/11-177.1).
While this study was limited to interactions between two female birds in another country, it seems likely that female Anhingas here in North Carolina could behave the same way, since Anhingas could reasonably compete for access to food elsewhere.

Anhingas

Despite spending a lot of their time in the water, Anhingas are strong fliers. But they can’t fly well with wet feathers.
These birds adopt a characteristic pose to sunbathe themselves dry.
- They face the sun, half-spread their wings, fan out their tail feathers, and turn their heads to the side to get as much sun to fall on their bodies as possible.
- They hold this position for many minutes.

Christine

Christine is the creator and author of NowIWonder.com, a website dedicated to the animals and plants that share our world, and the science that helps us understand them. Inspired by lifelong exploration and learning, Christine loves to share her knowledge with others who want to connect with wild faces and wild spaces.

See Full Bio