The dwarf bittern (Botaurus sturmii) is a species of heron in the family Ardeidae that is widely distributed across Sub-Saharan Africa avoiding only the very arid regions.

This species was formerly placed in the genus Ixobrychus.

It is found in Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Spain (the Canary Islands), Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

[1] It is a rare vagrant in the Western Palearctic (which consists of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East), with several sightings in the Canary Islands.

This Pelecaniformes-related article is a stub.