thumb|right|Coloured plate with the incorrect legend that was used by both [[Johann Hermann and Pieter Boddaert]]

thumb|A laughing kookaburra making a hollow for a nest in an arboreal termite nest

The laughing kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae) is a bird in the kingfisher subfamily Halcyoninae. It is a large kingfisher with a whitish head and a brown eye-stripe. It occupies dry eucalypt forest, woodland, city parks and gardens. Its diet includes lizards, insects, worms, snakes, mice and it is known to take goldfish out of garden ponds.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has classed the laughing kookaburra as a species of least concern as it has a large range and population, with no widespread threats. He claimed to have seen the bird in New Guinea. In fact Sonnerat never visited New Guinea and the laughing kookaburra does not occur there. He probably obtained a preserved specimen from one of the naturalists who accompanied Captain James Cook to the east coast of Australia. Edme-Louis Daubenton and François-Nicolas Martinet included a coloured plate of the laughing kookaburra based on Sonnerat's specimen in their . The plate has the legend in French "" (Kingfisher from New Guinea).

In 1783, the French naturalist Johann Hermann provided a formal description of the species based on the coloured plate by Daubenton and Martinet. He gave it the scientific name Alcedo novæ Guineæ. The current genus Dacelo was introduced in 1815 by the English zoologist William Elford Leach, and is an anagram of Alcedo, the Latin word for a kingfisher. The specific epithet novaeguineae combines the Latin novus for new with Guinea, based on the erroneous belief that the specimen had originated from New Guinea. but in 1926 the Australian ornithologist Gregory Mathews showed that a description by Hermann had been published earlier in the same year, 1783, and thus had precedence. The inaccurate impression of geographic distribution given by the name in current usage had not by 1977 been considered an important enough matter to force a change in favour of D. gigas. In 1858 the ornithologist John Gould used "great brown kingfisher", a name that had been coined by John Latham in 1782. Another popular name was "laughing kingfisher". and Gogera or Gogobera by George Bennett in 1834. In the early years of the 20th century "kookaburra" was included as an alternative name in ornithological publications, but it was not until 1926 in the second edition of the Official Checklist of Birds of Australia that the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union officially adopted the name "laughing kookaburra".

Two subspecies are recognised:

  • D. n. novaeguineae (Hermann, 1783) – the nominate subspecies, east Australia and introduced into Tasmania and southwest Australia
  • D. n. minor Robinson, 1900 – Cape York Peninsula south to Cooktown It is a stout, stocky bird in length, with a large head, prominent brown eyes, and a long and robust bill. The sexes are very similar, although the female is usually larger and has less blue to the rump than the male. The male weighs , mean and the female , mean . They have a white or cream-coloured body and head with a dark brown stripe across each eye and more faintly over the top of the head. The wings and back are brown with sky blue spots on the shoulders. The tail is rusty reddish-orange with dark brown bars and white tips on the feathers. The heavy bill is black on top and bone-coloured on the bottom. The subspecies D. n. minor has a similar plumage to the nominate but is smaller in size. The breeding pair within a riot of kookaburra teach the fledglings to produce the signature laughing call after the young have left the nest. Calls are utilized as neighbour/kin recognition to exhibit that groups are still inhabiting a territory. Acoustic communication between laughing kookaburras increases 2–3 months before the breeding season, September to January, because male aggression also increases. This large range of calls is highlighted through cadencing, intonation, and frequency modulations that allow more detailed information to be conveyed.

Distribution and habitat

The laughing kookaburra is native to eastern Australia and has a range that extends from the Cape York Peninsula in the north to Cape Otway in the south. It is present on both the eastern and the western sides of the Great Dividing Range. In the south the range extends westwards from Victoria to the Yorke Peninsula and the Flinders Ranges in South Australia.

It has been introduced into many other areas probably because of its reputation for killing snakes. In December 1891, the Western Australian parliament included 'Laughing Jackass' in the schedule of strictly preserved Australian native birds in the Game Bill, moved by Horace Sholl, member for North District. He described it as native of the North West. His nomination is, therefore, certainly a reference to the blue-winged kookaburra (Dacelo leachii), not the laughing kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae). The Game Act, 1892 (Western Australia), "An Act to provide for the preservation of imported birds and animals, and of native game," provided that proclaimed Australian native birds and animals listed in the First Schedule of the Act could be declared protected from taking. Laughing Jackass was one of 23 Australian native bird species named in the schedule.

Laughing kookaburras from Eastern States were released to the South West as early as 1883, with birds being noted between Perth and Fremantle, as well as up in Mullewa around 1896. The Acclimatization Society (or Animal and Bird Acclimatization committee of WA) imported and released hundreds of birds between 1897 and 1912. Mainly via Ernest Le Souef who was Secretary of the Acclimatization Society and Director of Perth Zoological Gardens, an enthusiastic supporter of the Kookaburra who admitted to releasing hundreds from the Zoo, including 50 in 1900 at the Royal request of the visiting Duke of York.

By 1912 breeding populations had been established in a number of areas. The present range in Western Australia is southwest of a line joining Geraldton on the west coast and Hopetoun on the south coast. It now breeds in a small region on the western side of the Hauraki Gulf between Leigh and Kumeu.

The usual habitat is open sclerophyll forest and woodland. It is more common where the understory is open and sparse or where the ground is covered with grass. Tree-holes are needed for nesting. It also occurs near wetlands and in partly cleared areas or farmland with trees along roads and fences. In urban areas it is found in parks and gardens. The range of the laughing kookaburra overlaps with that of the blue-winged kookaburra in an area of eastern Queensland that extends from the Cape York Peninsula south to near Brisbane. Around Cooktown the laughing kookaburra tends to favour areas near water while the blue-winged kookaburra keeps to drier habitats. Additional sightings of laughing kookaburras have been recorded in Scotland, suggesting that individuals of the species may have been intentionally or accidentally released.

Behaviour

upright|right|thumb|Kookaburra with a captured [[gecko in its beak]]

Kookaburras occupy woodland territories (including forests) in loose family groups, and their laughter serves the same purpose as a great many other bird calls—to mark territorial borders. Most species of kookaburras tend to live in family units, with offspring helping the parents hunt and care for the next generation of offspring.

Breeding

thumb|Juvenile in [[Sydney: Juveniles have shorter bills with a dark underside, and a strong white on the wing and mantle feathers.]]

During mating season, the laughing kookaburra reputedly indulges in behaviour similar to that of a wattlebird. The female adopts a begging posture and vocalises like a young bird. The male then offers her his current catch accompanied with an "oo oo oo" sound. However, some observers maintain that the opposite happens – the female approaches the male with her current catch and offers it to him. Nest-building may start in August with a peak of egg-laying from September to November. Trapeze flights are aptly named after the swooping motion that neighbouring kookaburras will make towards one another in midair when defending territory. Laughing kookaburras will splay out their wings and propel their head forward while shaking their tail feathers to exhibit dominance and ward off intruders.

Recordings of this bird have been edited into Hollywood movies for decades, usually in jungle settings, beginning with the Tarzan series in the 1930s, and more recently in the film The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997).

Conservation status

The population density of the laughing kookaburra in Australia varies between 0.04 and 0.8 birds/ha depending on the habitat. Assuming an average of 0.3 birds/ha the total population may be as large as 65 million individuals. However, this may represent a severe over-estimate since the population of the laughing kookaburra seems to be undergoing a marked decline with Birdata showing a 50% drop in sightings from 2000 to 2019, and a drop in the reporting rate from 25% to 15% over the same period. The population in New Zealand is relatively small and is probably less than 500 individuals. Given the extended range and the large stable population, the species is evaluated as of "least concern" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.