The red-billed tropicbird is one of three closely related species of seabird of tropical oceans. Superficially resembling a tern in appearance, it has mostly white plumage with some black markings on the wings and back. It has a black mask and, as its common name suggests, a red bill. This species ranges across the tropical Atlantic, eastern Pacific, and Indian Oceans.
About Red-billed tropicbird in brief
The red-billed tropicbird is one of three closely related species of seabird of tropical oceans. Superficially resembling a tern in appearance, it has mostly white plumage with some black markings on the wings and back. It has a black mask and, as its common name suggests, a red bill. This species ranges across the tropical Atlantic, eastern Pacific, and Indian Oceans. Nesting takes place in loose colonies, as they nest a scrape found on a cliff face that is easy to take off from. The nominate is found in the southern Atlantic Ocean, the subspecies indicus in the waters off of the Middle East and in the Indian Ocean. The subspecies mesonauta is distinguished from the nominate by the rosy tinge of its fresh plumage. It is considered to be a least-concern species according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, though populations are thought to be declining. In some places, such as Brazil and Mexico, this bird is considered to be threatened. In a 1945 paper, American ornithologist Waldo Lee McAtee proposed it be called the barred-backed tropicbirds after its most distinguishing feature, the black mask. It was one of the many bird species originally described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of his Systema Naturae, and still bears its original scientific name, Phaethon aethereus.
The genus name is derived from Ancient Greek phaeth on, sun, while the species name comes from Latin aetherius, heavenly, and the common name is “bosun bird” An alternative derivation of the name is from the semblance of the tail feathers to marlin spikes, from the similarity of its shrill call to a boatswain’s whistle. It measures 90 to 105cm – 46 to 56cm – on average, which includes the tail streamers that are about two times their body length, with those in males being generally longer than those in females. Without them, the tropic bird measures about 48 cm. In overall appearance it is tern-like in shape, with white, black wing tips, and a back that is finely barred in that has gray mottling near the nape and hind nape, and usually seen near the hind neck and nape of the head. The species is thought to have split between the red-tailed and white-tailed tropic Birds about six million years ago, and is now considered a basal genus in the family PhaETHON. It can be seen in the wild in the Caribbean, the Bahamas, and South America, and in parts of the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Oceans. The birds feed on fish and squid, catching them by diving from the air into the water. The predators will drive the prey to the surface, which are then seized by the bird, then seize by the Tropicbird.
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This page is based on the article Red-billed tropicbird published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 07, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
