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Modern usage

The great white pelican is the national bird of Romania. The brown pelican is the national bird of three Caribbean countries— Saint Kitts and Nevis, Barbados, and Sint Maarten —and features on their coats of arms. It is also the state bird of the US state of Louisiana, which is known colloquially as the Pelican State; the bird appears on the state flag and state seal. It adorns the seals of Louisiana State University, Tulane University, Louisiana Tech University, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Loyola University New Orleans, Southeastern Louisiana University, and Southern University, and is the mascot of the New Orleans Pelicans NBA team, the Lahti Pelicans ice hockey team, Tulane University, and the University of the West Indies. A white pelican logo is used by the Portuguese bank Montepio Geral, and a pelican is depicted on the reverse of the Albanian 1 lek coin, issued in 1996. The name and image were used for Pelican Books, an imprint of nonfiction books published by Penguin Books. The seal of the Packer Collegiate Institute, a pelican feeding her young, has been in use since 1885.

The pelican is the subject of a popular limerick originally composed by Dixon Lanier Merritt in 1910 with several variations by other authors. The original version ran:

A wonderful bird is the pelican, His bill will hold more than his belican, He can take in his beak Food enough for a week, But I'm damned if I see how the helican.