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The great skua (Stercorarius skua), sometimes known by the name bonxie in Britain, is a large seabird in the skua family Stercorariidae. It is roughly the size of a herring gull. It mainly eats fish caught at the sea surface or taken from other birds.
The brown booby (Sula leucogaster) is a large seabird of the booby family Sulidae, of which it is perhaps the most common and widespread species. [3] It has a pantropical range, which overlaps with that of other booby species. The gregarious brown booby commutes and forages at low height over inshore waters.
The diet of red-footed boobies consists mostly of fish (such as Exocoetidae flying fish and Gempylidae escolars) and squid. [17] Studies of the red-footed booby on Christmas Island have found that most fish eaten are 6–15 cm (2.4–5.9 in) long, with a maximum length of 20 cm (7.9 in), and most squid are 6–10 cm (2.4–3.9 in), with a ...
Gannets can achieve speeds of 100 km/h (62.13 mph) as they strike the water, enabling them to catch fish at a much greater depth than most airborne birds. [ 5 ] The gannet's supposed capacity for eating large quantities of fish has led to "gannet" becoming a description of somebody with a voracious appetite.
The masked booby (Sula dactylatra), also called the masked gannet or the blue-faced booby, is a large seabird of the booby and gannet family, Sulidae. First described by the French naturalist René-Primevère Lesson in 1831, the masked booby is one of six species of booby in the genus Sula. It has a typical sulid body shape, with a long pointed ...
The importance of each of these food sources varies from species to species, and even from population to population; some concentrate on squid alone, others take more krill or fish. [31] Of the two albatross species found in Hawaii, one, the black-footed albatross, takes mostly fish, while the Laysan feeds on squid. [5]
The genus name is from Latin Larus, which refers to a gull or other large seabird. The species name smithsonianus commemorates English chemist James Smithson whose £100,000 bequest enabled the foundation of the institution that bears his name. [2] The taxonomy of the herring gull group is very complicated and much is still controversial and ...
There exists no single definition of which groups, families and species are seabirds, and most definitions are in some way arbitrary. Elizabeth Shreiber and Joanna Burger, two seabird scientists, said, "The one common characteristic that all seabirds share is that they feed in saltwater; but, as seems to be true with any statement in biology, some do not."