The Australian pelican (Pelecanus conspicillatus) is a large waterbird in the family Pelecanidae, widespread on the inland and coastal waters of Australia and New Guinea, also in Fiji, parts of Indonesia and as a vagrant in New Zealand.

Its specific epithet is derived from the Latin verb conspicere, meaning 'to behold', and refers to the 'spectacled' appearance created by its conspicuous eye markings.

During courtship, the orbital skin and distal quarter of the bill are orange-coloured with the pouch variously turning dark blue, pink and scarlet.

Juvenile birds are similar to the adults, but with black replaced with brown and the white patch on upper wing reduced.

Australian pelicans occur primarily in large expanses of open water without dense aquatic vegetation.

The habitats that can support them include large lakes, reservoirs, billabongs and rivers, as well as estuaries, swamps, temporarily flooded areas in arid zones, drainage channels in farmland, salt evaporation ponds and coastal lagoons.

The surrounding environment is unimportant: it can be forest, grassland, desert, estuarine mudflats, an ornamental city park, or industrial wasteland, provided only that there is open water able to support a sufficient supply of food.

[9] The species became first known to occur in New Zealand from a specimen shot at Jerusalem in 1890 and small numbers of subfossil bones, the first found at Lake Grassmere in 1947, followed by records of other stray individuals.

The bones were later described as a new (sub)species, Pelecanus (conspicillatus) novaezealandiae (Scarlett, 1966: "New Zealand pelican") as they appeared to be larger, but Worthy (1998), reviewing new material, determined that they were not separable from the Australian population.

A population irruption occurred in 1978 into Indonesia, with Australian pelicans reaching Sulawesi, Java and possibly also Sumatra.

They work in groups to drive fish to shallower water, where they stick their sensitive bills in to snatch their prey.

This pelican also takes other birds with some frequency, such as silver gulls, Australian white ibis and grey teal, including eggs, nestlings, fledglings and adults, which they may kill by pinning them underwater and drowning them.

The breeding season varies, occurring in winter in tropical areas (north of 26°S) and spring in parts of southern Australia.

Due to the popularity of open water sports, the habitat of the Australian pelican has suffered considerably less than more vegetated wetlands throughout Australia.