Another Limpkin Summer

Louisiana's newest wetland resident arrives on the wings of an apple snail feast, and may be here to stay

by

Knowing Nature

“Limpkin” is a drab little name. It sounds like a minor schoolyard taunt, before the kids quite dare to use the big guns, or perhaps a lesser Tolkien character noted for cowardice. But its unprepossessing name is one of the few unattractive aspect of the limpkin, an attractive and charismatic wetland bird that’s one of the newest exotic species to make its home in the Louisiana wetlands, lured by the plentiful supply of another invader it likes to eat.

If the limpkin is not quite grand, it is at least a handsome animal, with brown-and-white feathers arranged in a near-polka-dotted, almost herringbone, pattern; an imposingly long beak made to make short work of any shells protecting its prey, and an alert expression (for a bird). The flaccid name comes from its undignified gait as it wades through wetlands, which early Anglophone observers thought made it look like it was hobbling—though reportedly limpkins can book it when they need to. They have big vocabularies, with the males’ complex windpipes making possible an array of chirping, rattling, and wailing calls, described variously as “haunting,” “creepy,” “welcoming,” or “majestic,” depending on how much the person describing the sound likes birds and whether they’ve been reading anything scary. 

Like many tourists, the limpkin came to Louisiana because of food.

The limpkin is not endangered, a status secured partly by its enormous range: they live as far south as the area around Buenos Aires, are present in much of the interior of South America, flourish along both coasts of the Central American isthmus and throughout the Caribbean, and extend as far north as Florida—and now, Louisiana. 

Like many tourists, the limpkin came to Louisiana because of food. The bird is a voracious connoisseur of the invasive apple snail (now unfortunately a common sight in much of Louisiana), loving the molluscan interloper so much that you can sometimes find piles of shattered shells marking where limpkins have had a particularly filling dinner. 

Bird enthusiast and author Marybeth Lima was onsite to see the second limpkin reported in Louisiana. The Louisiana Ornithological Society regularly issues lists of birds “expected” in the state, species whose ranges or behaviors are changing in ways likely to bring them here. So, Lima and her fellow birders were poised to spot the new arrival. 

When one was spotted near Houma during the Christmas Bird Count, an annual avian census, Lima was on the road, arriving to find herself one of many people pulled over off North Hollywood Road, looking to see the limpkin’s distinctive pelage through the brush. This first sighting was exciting—Lima speaks with an animal lover’s fondness about the beauty of the bird’s call and tells me it’s fun to watch them eat—but she also admits the bird has lost a bit of its glamour as the novelty’s worn off. Since that heady day in 2018, she’s tracked twenty-three observations and even sees limpkins on jogs near her home. (Her new bird crush, an elegant little insectivore called the black phoebe, is creeping toward Cameron Parish from Texas, and Lima has been staking out spots close to the state line to spot it as soon as it arrives.)

[Read this: Invasive Snails Threaten Key Louisiana Crops—Apple snails eat the vegetation until there is no more; then, with a lung that enables them to breathe out of the water, they move onto dry ground to continue feeding.]

It does seem likely that the limpkin is in Louisiana to stay: sightings have become common enough that the birds are probably established, not just visiting. Erik Johnson, former Director of Bird Conservation for Audubon Louisiana and current LSU professor in the School of Renewable Natural Resources, noted that limpkin sightings exploded across the eastern U.S. in the summers of 2022 and 2023—“hot limpkin summers,” for those tuned in to bird culture—but that the one-off sightings in states like Iowa and Pennsylvania didn’t lead to apparent colonization by limpkins. Those individuals either died or retreated, presumably at least in part because those areas don’t host apple snails. While limpkins strongly prefer apple snails, they do supplement with other invertebrate prey. Lima recalls having seen one chow down on a crawfish (but did they put corn in the boil?) and Johnson noted that mussels were a second-favorite food source. 

In a state that’s weathered onslaughts of marsh-choking water hyacinth, cane-draining scale insects, citrus-stunting bacteria, and ankle-chomping fire ants, among many other unwelcome arrivals, it’s natural to wonder if the limpkin, endearing as it is, presents a problem. The answer is: not yet, but perhaps someday, and it’ll be Louisiana’s mussels that are most likely to lose out. 

At the moment, apple snails exist in large enough numbers here that limpkins won’t eradicate them soon, but should they pack away enough escargot that the supply can’t meet their appetites, they’ll be likely to turn to mussels to make up the shortfall. Louisiana’s native mussels are, broadly speaking, not prepared to outbreed a new predator, given that many species are already teetering in the wake of changes to their habitats and competition from invasive species. 

Even at the risk of Louisiana’s wetlands swallowing the spider to catch the metaphorical fly, the limpkins’ help limiting the apple snail numbers would be welcome.

That said, even at the risk of Louisiana’s wetlands swallowing the spider to catch the metaphorical fly, the limpkins’ help limiting the apple snail numbers would be welcome. The invasive mollusks, South American like the also-obnoxious nutria and red fire ant, were first spotted in Louisiana waters near Gretna in 2006 and probably resulted from someone dumping their aquarium out, ignorant that doing so is the wet equivalent of smoking at the gas station. Since then, apple snail populations have been reported in thirty parishes, and in the worst-affected areas they can interfere with rice and crawfish farming thanks to their colossal appetite for plant matter. (And without rice and crawfish, what is there?) The snails not only lay egg masses laced with a neurotoxic and irritating poison strong enough to kill mice, but they also carry a parasite that, despite being called “rat lungworm,” can invade the human brain. 

Johnson is currently working with colleagues to seek funding to study limpkins and how their presence may affect the ecology of the Louisiana wetlands, so we can hope that clearer information about what to expect is forthcoming—and that crawfish yields and sizes rise with their competitors disappearing down limpkin gullets.

[Read this: A Q&A with Rodrigo Diaz, Invasive Species Expert ] 

The limpkin may not be the last new arrival hoping to take advantage of Louisiana’s bounty of apple snails. Observers have recently confirmed sightings of the snail kite, a raptor that also specializes in consuming apple snails that is endemic to the Everglades—or at least it was until recently. Snail kite populations in their Florida homeland sank as low as eight hundred individuals in 2007, but they recovered in part thanks to the arrival in Florida of the same invasive apple snails spreading through Louisiana and luring limpkins over. Now that snail kite numbers have rebounded, they’re expected to make their way across the Gulf in larger numbers, joining their old limpkin neighbors at the all-you-can-eat buffets on the bayou. 

It’s another variable for ecologists juggling information about our changing world to track, but bird lovers have a new reason to sling on the binoculars and head out the door.