[1] The first formal description of the wattled crane was by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in 1789 under the binomial name Ardea carunculata.

[3][4] Gmelin based his account on the "wattled heron" that had been described and illustrated by the English ornithologist John Latham in 1785.

The wattled crane is taller and, despite the appearance of gracility imparted by its sharp but slim beak and slender neck and legs, is the heaviest on average of several very large, long-legged waders in Africa (i.e. the 2 largest African storks, shoebill, greater flamingo, goliath heron).

[10] It is also roughly the fourth heaviest African flying bird after the great white pelican, the much more sexually dimorphic kori bustard and cape vulture.

The skin in front of the eye extending to the base of the beak and tip of the wattles is red and bare of feathers and covered by small round wart-like bumps.

[14] The wattled crane occurs in eleven countries in eastern and southern Africa, including an isolated population in the Ethiopia Highlands.

[15] The wattled crane has been spotted in Uganda for the first time in 2011, seen in the Kibimba Rice region in the eastern side of the country.

The principal food of the wattled crane is mainly aquatic eating the tubers and rhizomes of submerged sedges and water lilies.

[12] Somewhat gregarious outsize of the breeding season, flocks of wattled cranes can often include 10 or more birds, occasionally as many as 89 individuals.

Two species are known to associate closely with wattled cranes due to shared habitat and dietary preferences: the antelope known as the lechwe and the spur-winged goose, the latter nonetheless usually being found in slightly deeper waters.

The young remain with their parents for up to a year (when the next breeding period starts) and may gather in flocks with unrelated juveniles.

Hydroelectric power projects and other water development have caused fundamental changes in the species expansive floodplain habitats, and their most important food source Eleocharis spp.

Human and livestock disturbance, powerline collisions, mass aerial spraying of tsetse flies, and illegal collection of eggs, chicks and adults for food are also significant threats to wattled cranes throughout their range.

The wattled crane is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.