Their breeding habitat is small wetlands in the Old World tropics from west Africa to Japan and Australia, and in South America and the Caribbean.

[3] The striated heron was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae.

[6] The striated heron is now one of three closely related species placed in the genus Butorides that was described in 1852 by the English zoologist Edward Blyth.

[9] Adults have a blue-grey back and wings, white underparts, a black cap, a dark line extends from the bill to under the eye and short yellow legs.

[11] An adult bird was once observed in a peculiar and mysterious behaviour: while on the nest, it would grab a stick in its bill and make a rapid back-and-forth motion with the head, like a sewing machine's needle.