Skua

Skuas
Pomarine jaeger
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Charadriiformes
Suborder:	Lari
Family:	Stercorariidae Gray, 1871
Genus:	Stercorarius Brisson, 1760
Type species
Larus parasiticus Linnaeus, 1758
Species
See text.

The skuas

The English word "skua" comes from the Faroese name for the great skua, skúgvur [ˈskɪkvʊɹ], with the island of Skúvoy renowned for its colony of that bird. The general Faroese term for skuas is kjógvi [ˈtʃɛkvɪ]. The word "jaeger" or Jäger is German for "hunter".^[1][2] The genus name Stercorarius is Latin and means "of dung";^{[note 1]} the food disgorged by other birds when pursued by skuas was once thought to be excrement.^[3]

Skuas nest on the ground in

Outside the breeding season, skuas take fish, offal, and carrion. Many practice kleptoparasitism, which comprises up to 95% of the feeding methods of wintering skuas, by chasing gulls, terns and other seabirds to steal their catches, regardless of the size of the species attacked (up to three times heavier than the attacking skua). The larger species, such as the great skua, also regularly kill and eat adult birds, such as puffins and gulls, and have been seen 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 can be caught near their colonies. The eggs and chicks of other seabirds, primarily penguins, are an important food source for most skua species during the nesting season.^[6]

In the southern oceans and Antarctica region, some skua species (especially the south polar skua) will readily scavenge carcasses at breeding colonies of both penguins and pinnipeds. Skuas will also kill live penguin chicks. In these areas, the skuas will often forfeit their catches to the considerably larger and very aggressive giant petrels. Skuas have also been observed to directly pilfer milk from the elephant seal's teat.^[7]

They are medium to large

The skuas are strong, acrobatic fliers. They are generally aggressive in disposition. Potential predators approaching their nests will be quickly attacked by the parent birds, which usually target the heads of intruders – a practice known as 'divebombing'.^[8]

Taxonomy

The genus Stercorarius was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760 with the parasitic jaeger (Stercorarius parasiticus) as the type species.^[9][10]

Skuas are related to

Species

The genus contains seven species:^[13]

Genus Skua – Brisson, 1760 – eight species

Common name	Scientific name and subspecies	Range	Size and ecology	IUCN status and estimated population
Chilean skua	Stercorarius chilensis Bonaparte, 1857	Breeds along the coasts of southern Chile and southern Argentina, winters along the Pacific coasts of Peru and Chile as well as the Atlantic coast of Argentina	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
South polar skua	Stercorarius maccormicki Saunders, 1893	Breeds along the coast on Antarctica, winters in the north Atlantic and north Pacific	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
Brown skua	Stercorarius antarcticus (Lesson, 1831) Three subspecies S. a. antarcticus (Lesson, 1831) S. a. hamiltoni (Hagen, 1952) S. a. lonnbergi (Mathews, 1912)	Southern Ocean	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
Great skua	Stercorarius skua (Brünnich, 1764)	Breeds along the coastline of the northeast Atlantic, winters in the north Atlantic	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
Pomarine jaeger or pomarine skua	Stercorarius pomarinus (Temminck, 1815)	Breeds along the Arctic coastline, winters in tropical and subtropical oceans	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
Parasitic jaeger or Arctic skua	Stercorarius parasiticus (Linnaeus, 1758)	Breeds along the Arctic coastline, winters in the southern hemisphere	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
Long-tailed jaeger or long-tailed skua	Stercorarius longicaudus Vieillot, 1819 Two subspecies S. l. longicaudus Vieillot, 1819. S. l. pallescens Løppenthin, 1932	Breeds in the Arctic, winters in the Southern Ocean	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC

References

1. ^ "Jaeger". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
2. ^ "Skua". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
3. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4
   .
4. ^ Mark Sabbatini, "Non-human life form seen at Pole", The Antarctic Sun, 5 January 2003.
5. ^ Scottish Ornithologists' Club Archived 2011-07-16 at the Wayback Machine
6. ^
   ISBN 1-85391-186-0
   .
7. ^ "Antarctica's Milk-Stealing, Grudge-Holding Seabirds". Boston NPR. 2016.
8. ^ "Scottish Wildlife Trust builds £50,000 loo on Handa". BBC News. 12 March 2012.
9. ^ Brisson, Mathurin Jacques (1760). Ornithologie, ou, Méthode Contenant la Division des Oiseaux en Ordres, Sections, Genres, Especes & leurs Variétés (in French and Latin). Paris: Jean-Baptiste Bauche. Vol. 1, p. 56, Vol. 6, p. 149.
10. ^ Peters, James Lee, ed. (1934). Check-list of Birds of the World. Vol. 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 311.
11. ^ American Ornithologists' Union (2000). Forty-second supplement to the American Ornithologists' Union Check-list of North American Birds. The Auk 117(3):847–858.
12. ^ Cohen, Baker, Belchschmidt, Dittmann, Furness, Gerwin, Helbig, de Korte, Marshall, Palma, Peter, Ramli, Siebold, Willcox, Wilson and Zink (1997). Enigmatic phylogeny of skuas. Proc. Biol. Sci. 264(1379):181–190.
13. ^ Gill, Frank; Donsker, David, eds. (2019). "Noddies, gulls, terns, auks". World Bird List Version 9.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 24 June 2019.

External links

Wikispecies has information related to Stercorariidae.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Stercorariidae.

• "Skua" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). 1911.
• Great Skua videos on the Internet Bird Collection