CreatureData

Royal spoonbill

Platalea regia Gould, 1838

LCLeast Concernbirds

The royal spoonbill (Platalea regia) is a species in the family Threskiornithidae, order Pelecaniformes. Recorded adults weigh 1.58 kg to 1.89 kg and live up to 28.3 years. Source checklists list it for 1 country: Australia. Its IUCN Red List status is Least Concern.

No freely licensed photo yet

Quick facts about the royal spoonbill

Weight
1.58 kg – 1.89 kgsrc for Weight
Length
Not recorded
Wingspan
1.2 msrc for Wingspan
Lifespan
28.3 yearssrc for Lifespan
Diet
Aquatic predatorsrc for Diet
Longest recorded lifespan
30.1 years
Main food
Not recorded
Habitat
wetlandsrc for Habitat
Egg incubation
24.5 dayssrc for Egg incubation
Young per litter or clutch
3 – 3.5src for Young per litter or clutch
Age at maturity
3 yearssrc for Age at maturity
Litters or clutches a year
1src for Litters or clutches a year
Lifestyle
Terrestrialsrc for Lifestyle
Migration
Partialsrc for Migration
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN)src for Conservation status
Countries on record
1 countrysrc for Countries on record

How big is the royal spoonbill?

ROYAL SPOONBILL · WINGSPAN 1.2 MADULT HUMAN · HEIGHT 1.7 M
At 1.2 m, the recorded maximum wingspan of the royal spoonbill is about 71% of the height of an adult human (1.7 m, a fixed reference used for scale).

Photos of the royal spoonbill

Only freely licensed photos are shown. Each carries its creator and licence.

1 more photo exists under a licence we cannot display: view at source.

Where does the royal spoonbill live?

Countries where Catalogue of Life checklists list the species. Many checklists carry no country data, so the list is often incomplete. It is not a range map.

The royal spoonbill is listed for 1 country.

Australia
  • Listed
  • Not listed
small islands are not drawn at this scale

The same countries as a list

  1. Australia

Why a country list is not a range map

Listed by: ITIS (scope: global), through the Catalogue of Life.

What is the royal spoonbill?

Quoted from WikipediaCC BY-SA 4.0

The royal spoonbill (Platalea regia), also known as the black-billed spoonbill lives in intertidal flats and shallows of fresh and saltwater wetlands in Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands. (In New Zealand, it is also known by the Māori name kōtuku ngutupapa.) It has also been recorded as a vagrant in New Caledonia. It is one of 6 spoonbill species world wide. The royal spoonbill lives in wetlands and feeds on crustaceans, fish and small insects by sweeping its bill from side to side. It always flies with its head extended. Widespread throughout its large range, the royal spoonbill is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

From the Wikipedia article “Royal spoonbill” (en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Royal_spoonbill&oldid=1379734524), by Wikipedia contributors, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0). This block is kept separate from our own text.

Is the royal spoonbill endangered?

The royal spoonbill is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List: it is not currently at risk of extinction.

  1. LCLeast Concern
  2. NTNear Threatened
  3. VUVulnerable
  4. ENEndangered
  5. CRCritically Endangered
  6. EWExtinct in the Wild
  7. EXExtinct

Category via Wikidata (CC0). Find the full assessment on the IUCN Red List. See all Least Concern species. What the categories mean.

How is the royal spoonbill classified?

  1. kingdomAnimalia
  2. phylumChordata
  3. classAves
  4. orderPelecaniformes
  5. familyThreskiornithidae
  6. genusPlatalea
  7. SpeciesPlatalea regia Gould, 1838

Synonyms Platalea leucorodia regia, Platalea regia stalkeri

Other names and names in other languages (38)
  • أبو ملعقة الملكيArabic
  • Spanell roueelBreton
  • becplaner reialCatalan
  • kolpík královskýCzech
  • llwybig brenhinolWelsh
  • Australsk SkestorkDanish
  • KönigslöfflerGerman
  • reĝa plataleoEsperanto
  • Espátula realSpanish
  • Platalea regiaSpanish
  • mask-luitsnokkiibisEstonian
  • australiankapustahaikaraFinnish
  • Spatule royaleFrench
  • כפן מלכותיHebrew
  • crnolica žličarkaCroatian
  • királykanalasgémHungarian
  • Ibis-sendok rajaIndonesian
  • Spatola realeItalian
  • オーストラリアヘラサギJapanese
  • 오스트레일리아저어새Korean
  • karališkoji girnovėLithuanian
  • Kōtuku NgutupapaMāori
  • Kо̄tuku ngutupapaMāori
  • KoningslepelaarDutch
  • kongeskjestorkNorwegian
  • warzęcha królewskaPolish
  • colhereiro-realPortuguese
  • Королевская колпицаRussian
  • lyžičiar kráľovskýSlovak
  • Crnokljuni australijski kašičarSerbian
  • kungsskedstorkSwedish
  • australisk skedstorkSwedish
  • Kara Yüzlü KaşıkçıTurkish
  • Kara gagalı kaşıkçıTurkish
  • косар королівськийUkrainian
  • 大琵鷺Chinese
  • 澳洲琵鹭Chinese
  • 皇家琵鷺Chinese

Catalogue of LifeWikipediaiNaturalistTAXREFWikidataWoRMSIUCN Red List

Relatives of the royal spoonbill

Other species in the same genus Platalea.

CompareRoyal spoonbill vs Eurasian spoonbillRoyal spoonbill vs Roseate spoonbillRoyal spoonbill vs Black-faced spoonbillRoyal spoonbill vs African spoonbill

Common questions

Answered only where our data holds the answer.

How big is the royal spoonbill?

An adult royal spoonbill weighs 1.58 kg – 1.89 kg and has a wingspan of 1.2 m, according to values recorded on Wikidata.

Where does the royal spoonbill live?

Catalogue of Life checklists list the royal spoonbill for 1 country: Australia. Checklist coverage is uneven, so the true range may be wider.

Is the royal spoonbill endangered?

The royal spoonbill is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List, meaning it is not currently at risk of extinction.

How long does the royal spoonbill live?

The royal spoonbill has a recorded lifespan of 28.3 years.

What kind of animal is the royal spoonbill?

The royal spoonbill (Platalea regia) belongs to the family Threskiornithidae in the order Pelecaniformes.

Sources and how to cite this page

Data as of 2026-11-11. How this page is put together.

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APA

CreatureData. (2026). Royal spoonbill (Platalea regia). Retrieved from https://creaturedata.com/animals/royal-spoonbill

MLA

“Royal spoonbill (Platalea regia).” CreatureData, 2026, https://creaturedata.com/animals/royal-spoonbill.

BibTeX
@misc{royal_spoonbill_2026,
  title = {Royal spoonbill (Platalea regia)},
  author = {{CreatureData}},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://creaturedata.com/animals/royal-spoonbill},
  note = {Data as of 2026-11-11}
}