Laughing kookaburra hands without warning, by swooping in from a distance. People often feed them pieces of raw meat. Laughing Kookaburras are often kept in zoos. The kookaburra is also the subject of a popular Australian children's song, the "Kookaburra" which was written by Marion Sinclair in 1934. Recordings of this bird have been edited into Hollywood movies for decades - usually in jungle settings - beginning with the Tarzan series in the 1930s, and more recently in the film "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" (1997). Laughing kookaburra The laughing kookaburra ("Dacelo novaeguineae") is a bird in the kingfisher subfamily Halcyoninae. It
Laughing kookaburra the early years of the 20th century "kookaburra" was included as an alternative name in ornithological publications but it was not until 1926 in the second edition of the "Official Checklist of Birds of Australia" that the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union officially adopted the name "laughing kookaburra". The name comes from Wiradhuri, an Aboriginal language now effectively extinct. The genus "Dacelo" contains four kookaburra species of which the rufous-bellied kookaburra and the spangled kookaburra are restricted to New Guinea and islands in the Torres Straits. The blue-winged kookaburra and the laughing kookaburra are both widespread in Australia. Two subspecies are