The Story
I photographed this Anhinga (Anhinga anhinga) at Everglades National Park, Florida on June 10, 2017. Its name comes from the Tupi language and means devil bird or snake bird, since only its neck shows above the water when it swims. It spears fish and other small prey with its sharp, slender bill. Everglades National Park protects the southern 20 percent of the original Everglades and is the largest tropical wilderness in the United States. It was the first national park created to protect a fragile ecosystem, a network of wetlands fed by water flowing slowly southwest from Lake Okeechobee.
I took this with a Canon EOS 70D and the EF400mm f/5.6L USM, at 1/800 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400. IUCN lists the Anhinga as Least Concern, and Congress approved the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan in 2000, a federal effort to restore and protect the South Florida ecosystem.
©2017 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Anhinga (Anhinga anhinga) belongs to the family Anhingidae (Anhingas) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2025). Source: IUCN Red List