Pacific Reef Heron, a bird under national Class II protection, presented to our museum

On January 10, 2022, the Collection Conservation Research Center received the rock reef heron handed over by the Shanghai Forestry General Station. This specimen has enriched our collections, served as a faithful record of environmental changes and changes of bird distribution patterns in Shanghai, and provided specimen data support for relevant scientific research.

Pacific reef heron (scientific name: Egretta sacra), a bird of Ardeidae, Pelecaniformes, Aves, is a wild animal under national Class II protection. This species is mainly distributed in the coastal areas of Zhejiang, Fujian, Hainan, and Guangdong. It is also distributed on/in the western Pacific coast, Southeast Asia to New Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand. Pacific reef herons often inhabit the rocks or island cliffs of the intertidal zone along the coast, prey on fish, shrimps, mollusks, etc., and nest in mangroves, palms or stone caves along the coast during the breeding season. It is a new record of birds in Shanghai in 2021.