The national animal of Kiribati is the frigate bird, specifically the magnificent frigate bird. This is a seabird and the largest of the frigate bird family, featuring prominently on the flag of Kiribati. They are vitally important national symbols in this island nation and are large, lightly built seabirds with a forked tail.
Frigate birds in general are often unlike anything else you have ever seen.
They are a sight to behold and incredibly strange to some people in appearance. In Kiribati, though, they are among the most important members of the wildlife and are seen as important national symbols in both a literal and emblematic sense.
Let’s find out more.
What is the national animal of Kiribati?
The national animal of Kiribati is the magnificent frigate bird.
This is a seabird, one of five species in the wider genus of frigate birds.
Magnificent frigate birds occur over tropical and subtropical waters, and are most common in the Americas though are also found in the tropical Atlantic and Pacific Islands, such as Kiribati.
They are between three and four feet long and usually have a wingspan in the region of 7 to 8 feet. This makes them the largest of all the frigate bird species.
They are large but only lightly built, with brownish-black plumage and narrow wings.
Their tail is forked.
There is a high degree of sexual dimorphism: females tend to be a bit larger than males and have a white underside.
The male, though, in their most striking feature, has a red gular sac that can be inflated rather like a frog.
We’ll look at this in more detail later as it is undoubtedly their most impressive feature.
They feed more or less exclusively on fish, sometimes capturing themselves from the surface of the ocean.
They will often catch flying fish as they are leaping out of the water.
They are also known to exhibit what is called kleptoparasitism.
This means that they let other birds hunt for fish and then either steal the fish or even force the other bird to regurgitate their food.
They are very widespread in the tropical Atlantic and Pacific, breeding mostly in the Americas in places like Floria and the Caribbean.
Vagrant individuals have occurred as widely as the Isle of Man, Denmark, Spain and British Columbia.
They are a highly successful species that are usually too large to be threatened by any other birds in their habitats, leaving them without much competition.
Why, then, are they Kiribati’s national animal?
Why is the magnificent frigate bird the national animal of Kiribati?
The magnificent frigate bird holds significance to the people of Kiribati for a variety of reasons.
They are, on the one hand, highly symbolically important for a great variety of reasons.
They are, as birds often are, seen as symbols of freedom and liberation, soaring as they do over such a wide range and not even being restricted by the oceans in many cases.
They are also, in their large size, seen as symbols of strength and power to the people of Kiribati and thus are natural embodiments of these national values.
But this is not all.
On a more literal level, the magnificent frigate bird is also seen as one of the best embodiments of the islands’ natural beauty.
These impressive, brightly colored seabirds are seen as the perfect embodiment of Pacific island beauty, in a way perhaps few animals could be.
This, too, is another important reason for their position as the national animal.
Equally, though, you may get a different answer to this question depending on whom you ask.
They may embody different things to different people, and there is no single official explanation: they are just seen as one of the island’s keystone animals.
Are frigate birds rare?
Frigate birds are not especially rare in any useful sense.
They might not be a particularly common sight, as they do tend to nest away from human habitations, but their numbers hold very strong and they are listed as of least concern by the IUCN Red List.
They continue to be highly successful over a very wide range and as we’ve seen from the widespread vagrant examples, they can adapt well to a variety of environments.
That said, actually seeing one may still be a fairly rare sight, depending on where you are in the world.
They’re certainly not everywhere.
Why do frigate birds puff up?
The male frigate bird will puff up its throat sac as a display to females.
It doesn’t really serve much purpose beyond that; these kinds of displays are very common in birds of this kind.
The bigger and more brightly colored the sack, the easier it is for the female to discern a healthy, strong male.
They are healthy and successful enough, individually, to grow and sport their large throat sac.
The display, then, is simply one of courtship.
It is undoubtedly one of the most striking things about the frigate bird, and one example of countless different bizarre and impressive ways birds court mates.
The bright red throat pouch of a magnificent frigate bird is one of the most striking in nature.
For this and many other reasons, this bird is considered both the national animal and the national bird of Kiribati.
They are national symbols for a great variety of reasons but perhaps most importantly they are seen as encapsulations of the country’s natural beauty.