A large kingfisher native to eastern Australia. It gives laugh-like calls and pounces from perches onto prey.
The back and wings are brown, with a dark stripe through the eye. The rufous tail has broad black bars.
Laughing Kookaburras form breeding groups with a dominant pair and helpers. Legge and Cockburn combined DNA fingerprinting with field observations over four breeding seasons and reported groups of a dominant pair with up to six helpers. Helpers had been born in their own group. Rather than inheriting a breeding position within that group, helpers could move to a vacancy in another group or establish a new breeding group by forming a territory.
No extra-group parentage was found among 140 nestlings. In groups of three or more, dominance predicted parentage for 99.2% of 129 nestlings. Parentage reflected dominance within the group, while helpers could later breed by moving to another group or founding a new one.
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species · Least Concern (LC) · 世界全体
BirdLife Australia lists the Laughing Kookaburra as Least Concern (LC) globally under the IUCN assessment.