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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 southern royal albatross or toroa, (Diomedea epomophora) is a large seabird from the albatross family.At an average wingspan of above 3 m (9.8 ft), it is one of the two largest species of albatross, together with the wandering albatross.
The Oxford English Dictionary notes that the word Alcatraz was originally applied to the frigatebird; the modification to albatross was perhaps influenced by Latin Albus, meaning "white", in contrast to frigatebirds, which are black. [5] They were once commonly known as goonie birds or gooney birds, particularly those of the North Pacific.
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 word "stearn" was used for these birds in Old English as early as the eighth century, and appears in the poem The Seafarer, written in the ninth century or earlier. Variants such as "tearn" occurred by the eleventh century, although the older form lingered on in Norfolk dialect for several centuries. [ 21 ]
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 ...
The wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans), also known as the snowy albatross, white-winged albatross, or goonie, is a large seabird from the family Diomedeidae; they have a circumpolar range in the Southern Ocean.
Common names of fish can refer to a single species; to an entire group of species, such as a genus or family; or to multiple unrelated species or groups.Ambiguous common names are accompanied by their possible meanings.