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Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution , as the same environmental problems and feeding niches have resulted in similar adaptations.
The majority of sea terns have light grey or white body plumage as adults, with a black cap to the head. The legs and bill are various combinations of red, orange, yellow, or black depending on species. The pale plumage is conspicuous from a distance at sea, and may attract other birds to a good feeding area for these fish-eating species.
Live food often includes crustaceans, molluscs, fish and small birds. Gulls have unhinging jaws that provide the flexibility to consume large prey. Gulls are typically coastal or inland species, rarely venturing far out to sea, except for the kittiwakes and Sabine's gull. [5]
Albatrosses, along with all Procellariiformes, must excrete the salts they ingest in drinking sea water and eating marine invertebrates. All birds have an enlarged nasal gland at the base of the bill, above their eyes. This gland is inactive in species that do not require it, but in the Procellariiformes, it acts as a salt gland. Scientists are ...
The birds formerly bred on Ascension Island itself, but the colonies were exterminated by feral cats introduced in 1815. The birds continued to breed on a rocky outcrop just off the shore of the island. A program conducted between 2002 and 2004 eradicated the feral cats [67] and a few birds have returned to nest on the island. [68] [69]
Common tern Conservation status Least Concern (IUCN 3.1) Scientific classification Domain: Eukaryota Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Charadriiformes Family: Laridae Genus: Sterna Species: S. hirundo Binomial name Sterna hirundo Linnaeus, 1758 Breeding Resident Non-breeding Passage Vagrant (seasonality uncertain) Synonyms Sterna fluviatilis (Naumann, 1839) Twisted head The ...
Larger species, such as the great skua, regularly kill and eat adult seabirds, such as puffins and gulls and have been observed killing birds as large as a grey heron. [5] On the breeding grounds, the three, more slender northern breeding species commonly eat lemmings. Those species that breed in the southern oceans largely feed on fish that ...
The black skimmer (Rynchops niger) is a tern-like seabird, one of three similar bird species in the skimmer genus Rynchops in the gull family Laridae. It breeds in North and South America.
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