Red-footed booby
Red-footed booby | |
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White morph, Philippines | |
Brown morph, male, Galápagos Islands | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Suliformes |
Family: | Sulidae |
Genus: | Sula |
Species: | S. sula
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Binomial name | |
Sula sula (Linnaeus, 1766)
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Synonyms | |
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The red-footed booby (Sula sula) is a large seabird of the booby family, Sulidae. Adults always have red feet, but the colour of the plumage varies. They are powerful and agile fliers, but they are clumsy in takeoffs and landings. They are found widely in the tropics, and breed colonially in coastal regions, especially islands. The species faces few natural or man-made threats, although its population is declining; it is considered to be a least-concern species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Taxonomy
The red-footed booby was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1766, in the twelfth edition of his Systema Naturae. He gave it the binomial name Pelecanus sula and described it based on a specimen from Barbados.[3][4] The present genus Sula was introduced by the French scientist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760.[5] The word Sula is Norwegian for a gannet.[6]
There are three subspecies:[7]
- S. s. sula (Linnaeus, 1766) – Caribbean and southwest Atlantic islands
- S. s. rubripes Gould, 1838 – tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans
- S. s. websteri Rothschild, 1898 – eastern central Pacific
Description
The red-footed booby is the smallest member of the booby and gannet family at about 70 cm (28 in) in length and with a wingspan of up to 152 cm (60 in).[8] The average weight of 490 adults from Christmas Island was 837 g (1.845 lb).[9] It has red legs, and its bill and throat pouch are coloured pink and blue. This species has several morphs. In the white morph the plumage is mostly white (the head often tinged yellowish) and the flight feathers are black. The black-tailed white morph is similar, but with a black tail, and can easily be confused with the Nazca and masked boobies. The brown morph is overall brown. The white-tailed brown morph is similar, but has a white belly, rump, and tail. The white-headed and white-tailed brown morph has a mostly white body, tail and head, and brown wings and back. The morphs commonly breed together, but in most regions one or two morphs predominates; for example, at the Galápagos Islands, most belong to the brown morph, though the white morph also occurs.
The sexes are similar, and juveniles are brownish with darker wings, and pale pinkish legs, while chicks are covered in dense white down.
Distribution
The red-footed booby is widespread throughout the tropics of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. In the Indian Ocean, it is found on Aldabra, the Seychelles, Rodrigues, the Chagos Archipelago, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and Christmas Island.[10]
The red-footed booby has been
Ecology and behaviour
Breeding
This species breeds on islands in most tropical oceans. When not breeding it spends most of the time at sea, and is therefore rarely seen away from breeding colonies. It nests in large colonies, laying one chalky blue egg in a stick nest, which is incubated by both adults for 44–46 days. The nest is usually placed in a tree or bush, but rarely it may nest on the ground. It may be three months before the young first fly, and five months before they make extensive flights.
Red-footed booby pairs may remain together over several seasons. They perform elaborate greeting rituals, including harsh squawks and the male's display of his blue throat, also including short dances.
Diet
The diet of red-footed boobies consists mostly of
Predators and parasites
Adult red-footed boobies are known to be hunted by
Parasites recorded from the species include the tick Ornithodoros capensis in nests and the bird louse Pectino pygus in adults.[10]
Conservation
The
Gallery
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Red footed booby in flight over Half Moon Caye, Belize
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Juvenile red-footed booby poking his head out of his nest on Half Moon Caye, Belize
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Red-footed booby
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Egg, Collection Museum Wiesbaden
References
- ^ "Sula sula Linnaeus 1766 (red-footed booby)". PBDB.
- ^ . Retrieved 12 November 2021.
- ^ Linnaeus, Carl (1766). Systema naturae : per regna tria natura, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis [The system of nature: through the three kingdoms of nature, according to classes, orders, genera, species, with characters, differences, synonyms, places] (in Latin). Vol. 1, part 1 (12th ed.). Stockholm: Laurentii Salvii. p. 218.
- ^ Grant, Claude H. B.; Mackworth-Praed, C. W. (1933). "The Correct Type-locality of the Red-footed Booby, Sula sula sula (Linnæus)". Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club. 53: 185–187.
- ^ Brisson, Mathurin Jacques (1760). Ornithologie, ou, Méthode contenant la division des oiseaux en ordres, sections, genres, especes & leurs variétés (in French and Latin). Vol. 1. Paris: Jean-Baptiste Bauche. Vol. 1 p. 60, Vol. 6 p.494.
- ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
- ^ Gill, Frank; Donsker, David, eds. (2017). "Hamerkop, Shoebill, pelicans, boobies & cormorants". World Bird List Version 7.3. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 20 November 2017.
- ^ "Red-footed Booby". All About Birds. Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
- ISBN 978-1-4200-6444-5.
- ^ . Retrieved 2024-04-01.
- ^ Amarasinghe, Chamara Jayaba; Bandara, Imesh Nuwan. "Third confirmed record of the red-footed booby Sula sula from Sri Lanka". academia.
- ^ "'Astonishing' first ever NZ sighting of red-footed booby". 23 January 2017. Retrieved 2017-08-01.
- ^ Digital, Douglass. "Changes to the British List (16 August 17)". British Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 2022-07-05.
- ISSN 1540-9295.
- ^ Raine, André F.; Vynne, Megan; Driskill, Scott (2019). "The impact of an introduced avian predator, the Barn Owl Tyto alba, on Hawaiian seabirds" (PDF). Marine Ornithology. 47: 35.
- ISSN 0158-4197.
- ISSN 0019-1019.
- S2CID 40459951.