World Journal of Environmental Biosciences
World Journal of Environmental Biosciences
2018 Volume 7 Issue 3

Diet Behavior of the Cattle Egret (Ardea Ibis) in the Tebessa Region


Asma Selmane, Ali Chagra, Nadjette Khelili, Linda Bouguessa4, Menouar Saheb, Moussa Houhamdi
Abstract

A total of 96 pelots of the Cattle egret were explored in order to assess their morphological and quantitative aspect. The diet of this bird was composed of: invertebrate and vertebrate prey. Invertebrate prey, especially insects, account for the majority of items consumed in terms of the number of individuals (96.14%) reaching their peak during the summer period with 98.96%. They present high diversity diet during all the periods of the life cycle, mainly during breeding period; the Shannon index was equal to 3,477 bits with a high abundance in May with a number of items of 963. The values of the index of equitability were significantly the highest during the major months of study. This result of prey population variation is in equilibrium which confirms the opportunists feeding behavior of this species.


Copyright © 2024 - World Journal of Environmental Biosciences - All Rights Reserved Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.