Different species of crane. Clockwise from top left: blue cranes, sandhill cranes, grey crowned cranes, and red-crowned cranes

Cranes are tall wading birds in the family Gruidae. Cranes are found on every continent except for South America and Antarctica and inhabit a variety of open habitats, although most species prefer to live near water.^[1] They are large birds with long necks and legs, a tapering form, and long secondary feathers on the wing that project over the tail.^[2] Most species have muted gray or white plumages, marked with black, and red bare patches on the face, but the crowned cranes of the genus Balearica have vibrantly-coloured wings and golden "crowns" of feathers.^[1] Cranes fly with their necks extended outwards instead of bent into an S-shape (differentiating them from the similar-looking herons)^[3] and their long legs outstretched. They also have musical, long-reaching calls and elaborate courtship displays.^[2]

Cranes are threatened by habitat loss, intentional hunting, and the wildlife trade.^[1] The Siberian crane, with an estimated population of 3,500–4,000 mature individuals, is considered critically endangered due to the construction of dams that threaten one of its main wintering grounds.^[4] Two other species are considered endangered, seven are considered vulnerable, and one is considered near-threatened. The species with the smallest estimated population is the whooping crane, which is conservatively thought to number 50–249 mature individuals,^[5] and the one with the largest is the sandhill crane, which has an estimated population of 450,000–550,000 mature individuals.^[6]

There are currently 15 extant species of crane recognised by the International Ornithologists' Union distributed among four genera.^[7] The cranes are most closely related to the family Aramidae, which contains a single extant species, the limpkin.^[1][8] These two families, together with the trumpeters, rails, and finfoots, comprise the order Gruiformes.^[7] Many species of fossil cranes are known from the Eocene onwards; however, their exact number and taxonomy are unsettled due to ongoing discoveries.^[9]

Conventions

Conservation status codes listed follow the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. Range maps are provided wherever possible; if a range map is not available, a description of the crane's range is provided. Ranges are based on the IOC World Bird List for that species unless otherwise noted. Population estimates are of the number of mature individuals and are taken from the IUCN Red List.

This list follows the taxonomic treatment (designation and order of species) and nomenclature (scientific and common names) of version 13.2 of the IOC World Bird List.^[7] Where the taxonomy proposed by the IOC World Bird List conflicts with the taxonomy followed by the IUCN^{[lower-alpha 1]} or the 2023 edition of The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World, the disagreement is noted next to the species's common name (for nomenclatural disagreements) or scientific name (for taxonomic disagreements).

Classification

The International Ornithologists' Union (IOU) recognises 15 species of cranes in four genera.^[7] This list does not include hybrid species, extinct prehistoric species, or putative species not yet accepted by the IOU. The cranes are divided into two subfamilies, which diverged from each other around 31 million years ago: Balearicinae, containing the genus Balearica, and Gruinae, containing the genera Leucogeranus, Antigone, and Grus. Grus is sometimes further divided into three distinct genera, with the wattled crane being split out as Bugeranus and the blue and demoiselle cranes being split out as Anthropoides.^[11]

• Subfamily Balearicinae
  • Genus Balearica: two species
• Subfamily Gruinae
  • Genus Leucogeranus: one species
  • Genus Antigone: four species
  • Genus Grus: eight species

Gruids

Genus Balearica – Brisson, 1760 – 2 species

Common name	Scientific name and subspecies	Range	IUCN status and estimated population
Grey crowned crane	B. regulorum (Bennett, 1834) Two subspecies B. r. gibbericeps B. r. regulorum	Eastern and southeastern Africa	EN  17,700–22,300 [12]
Black crowned crane	B. pavonina Linnaeus, 1758 Two subspecies B. p. ceciliae B. p. pavonina	Northern, central, and western Africa	VU  28,000–47,000 [13]

Genus Leucogeranus – Bonaparte, 1855 – 1 species

Common name	Scientific name and subspecies	Range	IUCN status and estimated population
Siberian crane	L. leucogeranus (Pallas, 1773)	Northwestern Palearctic and east-central Siberia	CR  3,500–4,000 [4]

Genus Antigone – Reichenbach, 1853 – 4 species

Common name	Scientific name and subspecies	Range	IUCN status and estimated population
Sandhill crane	A. canadensis (Linnaeus, 1758)) Five subspecies A. c. canadensis A. c. tabida A. c. pratensis A. c. pulla A. c. nesiotes	North America	LC  450,000–550,000 [6]
White-naped crane	A. vipio (Pallas, 1811)	Southeastern Siberia, northeastern Mongolia and northeastern China	VU  3,700–4,500 [14]
Sarus crane	A. antigone (Linnaeus, 1758) Three subspecies A. a. antigone A. a. sharpii A. a. gillae	Northern India, Southeast Asia, and northern Australia	VU  13,000–15,000 [15]
Brolga	A. rubicunda (Perry, 1810)	Australia and south-central New Guinea	LC  Unknown [16]

Genus Grus – Brisson, 1760 – 8 species

Common name	Scientific name and subspecies	Range	IUCN status and estimated population
Wattled crane	G. carunculata[lower-alpha 2] (Gmelin, J. F., 1789)	Southern and eastern Africa	VU  6,000–6,300 [18]
Blue crane	G. paradisea[lower-alpha 3] (Lichtenstein, A. A. H., 1793)	Southern Africa	VU  17,000–30,000 [19]
Demoiselle crane	G. virgo[lower-alpha 4] (Linnaeus, 1758)	Asia and northwestern Africa	LC  230,000–261,000 [20]
Red-crowned crane	G. japonensis (Müller, P. L. S., 1776)	East Asia and Siberia	VU  2,000–2,650 [21]
Whooping crane	G. americana (Linnaeus, 1758)	North America	EN  50–249 [5]
Common crane	G. grus (Linnaeus, 1758)	Afro-Eurasia	LC  491,000–503,000 [22]
Hooded crane	G. monacha Temminck, 1835		VU  6,000–15,000 [23]
Black-necked crane	G. nigricollis Przevalski, 1876	India and China	NT  6,600–6,800 [24]

Notes

References