Sterna
Sterna | |
---|---|
Common tern by the River Thames | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Charadriiformes |
Family: | Laridae |
Tribe: | Sternini |
Genus: | Sterna Linnaeus, 1758 |
Type species | |
Sterna hirundo
, 1758 | |
Species | |
13, see text |
Sterna is a
paraphyletic. It is now restricted to the typical medium-sized white terns occurring near-globally in coastal regions.[1]
Taxonomy
The genus Sterna was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae.[2] The type species is the common tern (Sterna hirundo).[3] Sterna is derived from Old English "stearn" which appears in the poem The Seafarer; a similar word was used to refer to terns by the Frisians.[4]
Species
The genus contains 13 species.[5]
Image | Common Name | Scientific name | Distribution |
---|---|---|---|
Forster's tern | Sterna forsteri | North America. | |
Snowy-crowned tern or Trudeau's tern | Sterna trudeaui | Argentina, south-east Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay | |
Common tern | Sterna hirundo | Europe, North Africa, Asia east to western Siberia and Kazakhstan, and North America. | |
Roseate tern | Sterna dougallii | Atlantic coasts of Europe and North America, and winters south to the Caribbean and west Africa. | |
White-fronted tern | Sterna striata | New Zealand and Australia | |
Black-naped tern | Sterna sumatrana | tropical and subtropical areas of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. | |
South American tern | Sterna hirundinacea | southern South America, including the Falkland Islands, ranging north to Peru (Pacific coast) and Brazil (Atlantic coast). | |
Antarctic tern | Sterna vittata | Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, the Falkland Islands, the Heard Island, the McDonald Islands, Australia, and New Zealand. | |
Kerguelen tern | Sterna virgata | Kerguelen Islands, the Prince Edward Islands (i.e. Prince Edward and Marion) and Crozet Islands. | |
Arctic tern | Sterna paradisaea | the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of Europe, Asia, and North America (as far south as Brittany and Massachusetts). | |
River tern | Sterna aurantia | inland rivers from Iran east into the Indian Subcontinent and further to Myanmar to Thailand | |
Black-bellied tern | Sterna acuticauda | Pakistan, Nepal, India and Bangladesh, with a separate range in Myanmar. | |
White-cheeked tern | Sterna repressa | coasts on the Red Sea, around the Horn of Africa to Kenya, in the Persian Gulf and along the Iranian coast to Pakistan and western India. |
For the "brown-backed terns" see genus Onychoprion.
References
- ^ Bridge, E. S.; Jones, A. W. & Baker, A. J. (2005). A phylogenetic framework for the terns (Sternini) inferred from mtDNA sequences: implications for taxonomy and plumage evolution Archived 2006-07-20 at the Wayback Machine. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 35: 459–469.
- ^ Linnaeus, Carl (1758). Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin). Vol. 1 (10th ed.). Holmiae (Stockholm): Laurentii Salvii. p. 137.
- ^ Peters, James Lee, ed. (1934). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 331.
- ^ "Sterna". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
- Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (July 2021). "Noddies, gulls, terns, skimmers, skuas, auks". IOC World Bird List Version 11.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 16 August 2021.