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
Rufous-bellied kookaburra and rufous in females and immature birds. Rufous-bellied kookaburras are smaller than other kookaburra species at around as against the laughing kookaburra's and about as against the laughing kookaburra’s . Despite this major size difference, the rufous-bellied kookaburra has been known to form (infertile) hybrids with all other kookaburra species, though available genetic studies suggest it is clearly the most distant of the four. This kookaburra is unusual in that it occupies dense rainforests (as opposed to the open country preferred by other kookaburras) and does not live in cooperative breeding family groups but singly or when breeding in pairs.