Finfoot

===Diet and feeding=== Finfoots feed on a wide range of foods, insects of various sorts being the most frequently observed component of their diet. Little quantitative information on finfoot diet exists, but they have also been recorded eating molluscs, crustaceans, spiders, frogs, fish and some leaves and seeds. Unlike grebes they do not dive to obtain food, instead picking prey off the water's surface or foraging on the shore.

All three species tend to breed after the wet season, the exact timing of which is dependent on the local climate. The breeding behaviour of the masked finfoot is almost entirely unknown. All three species exhibit some changes in appearance prior to breeding – masked finfoots develop a fleshy knob above the bill, and the plumage of the male African finfoot and female sungrebe also change. There is considerable variation within the finfoots on several aspects of breeding; in the Sungrebe the nest building and incubation duties are shared between the sexes, in the African finfoot the female alone incubates. The nests of all finfoots are untidy bowls of sticks, twigs, and reeds suspended in vegetation above water.

There are three species. The African finfoot is found in tropical Africa on streams in woodland. The masked finfoot has a scattered distribution from Eastern India down through southeast Asia to the Wallace Line. The sungrebe is found in tropical Central and South America. Finfoots are highly secretive and many aspects of their biology are unknown to science.