Zebrilus undulatus
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~40%
The zigzag heron (Zebrilus undulatus) is a species of heron in the family Ardeidae, also including egrets and bitterns. It is in the monotypic genus Zebrilus. It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical swamps.
The zigzag heron was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the herons, cranes, storks and bitterns in the genus Ardea and coined the binomial name Ardea undulata. Gmelin based his description on the zigzig bittern from Cayenne that had been described by the English ornithologist John Latham in his multi-volume work A General Synopsis of Birds. Latham had in turn based his account on "Le petit butor de Cayenne" that had been described and illustrated in Comte de Buffon's Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. The zigzag heron is the only species placed in the genus Zebrilus that was introduced in 1855 by the French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte. The genus name Zebrilus is a diminutive of the French zèbre, "zebra". The specific epithet... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yasuní National Park | 🇪🇨 Ecuador | |
| 2 | Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve | 🇪🇨 Ecuador | |
| 3 | Tambopata National Reserve | 🇵🇪 Peru | |
| 4 | Parque Estadual Encontro das Águas | 🇧🇷 Brazil |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Zigzag Heron sighting in Yasuní National Park on a given day, based on 214 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 224th most-seen of the 533 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 40%, if each day is a fresh chance.
September and November–May
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Zigzag Heron in Yasuní National Park on a given day, against under 5% in June–August and October, the lowest months.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Zigzag Heron sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Yes
Of the 4 parks where we can rate Zigzag Heron sightings, Yasuní National Park has the highest daily chance: about 10%. Next come Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve (Ecuador, under 5%) and Tambopata National Reserve (Peru, under 5%).
Same family: Ardeidae
The closest relatives of the Zigzag Heron that you can see in Yasuní National Park (family Ardeidae, Herons, Egrets, and Bitterns) are Cocoi Heron (about 30%), Striated Heron (about 30%) and Rufescent Tiger Heron (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Zigzag Heron is recorded against all the birds logged in Yasuní National Park (214 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
