The boat-billed heron (Cochlearius cochlearius), colloquially known as the boatbill, is an atypical member of the heron family

In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the boat-billed heron in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in French Guiana. He used the French name La Cuillière and the Latin Cochlearius. Brisson placed the species in a new genus