Black-backed bittern

Weight

83.9 g – 149 g

Length

Not recorded

Lifespan

6 years – 6.92 years

Diet

Aquatic predator

Main food

Not recorded

Habitat

wetland

Egg incubation

18 days

Young per litter or clutch

4.6

Age at maturity

18 months – 2 years

Litters or clutches a year

1

Lifestyle

Terrestrial

Migration

Migratory

Conservation status

Not recorded

Countries on record

1 countrysrc for Countries on record

The black-backed bittern is listed for 1 country.

The same countries as a list

1. Australia

No conservation assessment is recorded for this species in our sources. That is not the same as being safe: it has not been matched to an assessment.

1. kingdomAnimalia
2. phylumChordata
3. classAves
4. orderPelecaniformes
5. familyArdeidae
6. genusBotaurus
7. SpeciesBotaurus dubius (Mathews, 1912)

Synonyms Ixobrychus dubius, Ixobrychus dubius dubius, Ixobrychus minutus dubius, Ixobrychus novaezelandiae dubius

Catalogue of Life

LC, Least Concern

Eurasian bittern

Botaurus stellaris

Ardeidae

LC, Least Concern

Little bittern

Botaurus minutus

Ardeidae

A

American bittern

Botaurus lentiginosus

ArdeidaeNo free photo yet

M

Matuku

Botaurus poiciloptilus

ArdeidaeNo free photo yet

P

Pinnated bittern

Botaurus pinnatus

ArdeidaeNo free photo yet

S

Stripe-backed bittern

Botaurus involucris

ArdeidaeNo free photo yet

CompareBlack-backed bittern vs Eurasian bitternBlack-backed bittern vs Little bitternBlack-backed bittern vs American bitternBlack-backed bittern vs Matuku

• An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles · CC0 1.0 · E096-269
  Myhrvold, N.P., Baldridge, E., Chan, B., Sivam, D., Freeman, D.L. & Ernest, S.K.M. (2015) An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96: 3109. https://doi.org/10.1890/15-0846R.1. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3563457.v1
• AmphiBIO, a global database for amphibian ecological traits · CC BY 4.0 · v1
  Oliveira, B.F., São-Pedro, V.A., Santos-Barrera, G., Penone, C. & Costa, G.C. (2017) AmphiBIO, a global database for amphibian ecological traits. Scientific Data 4: 170123. https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2017.123. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.4644424.v5
• AVONET: morphological, ecological and geographical data for all birds · CC BY 4.0 · v7
  Tobias, J.A. et al. (2022) AVONET: morphological, ecological and geographical data for all birds. Ecology Letters 25: 581–597. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13898. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.16586228.v7
• Catalogue of Life eXtended Release · CC BY 4.0 · 2026-10-16 XR
  Catalogue of Life (2026). Catalogue of Life eXtended Release, version 2026-10-16 XR. Catalogue of Life Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.48580/dgzlf
• Wikimedia Commons · per file (CC0 / public domain / CC BY green, CC BY-SA amber, anything else not displayed) · 2026-11-11
  Wikimedia Commons contributors. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org (each file credited to its author under its own licence).
• EltonTraits 1.0: species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals · CC0 1.0 · 1.0
  Wilman, H., Belmaker, J., Simpson, J., de la Rosa, C., Rivadeneira, M.M. & Jetz, W. (2014) EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95: 2027. https://doi.org/10.1890/13-1917.1. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3559887.v1
• Wikidata · CC0 1.0 · 2026-11-11
  Wikidata contributors. Wikidata. https://www.wikidata.org (data retrieved via the Wikidata Query Service).
• Wikipedia (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 2026-11-11
  Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org (text under CC BY-SA 4.0; each block names its article and revision).

@misc{black_backed_bittern_2026,
  title = {Black-backed bittern (Botaurus dubius)},
  author = {{CreatureData}},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://creaturedata.com/animals/black-backed-bittern},
  note = {Data as of 2026-11-11}
}