Lesser noddy
Species of bird
The lesser noddy (Anous tenuirostris), also known as the sooty noddy, is a seabird in the family Laridae. It is found near the coastlines of Comoros, Kenya, India, Maldives, Mauritius, Seychelles, Somalia, Sri Lanka and United Arab Emirates.
The lesser noddy was at one time considered as a subspecies of the black noddy (Anous minutus). The close relationship between the two species was confirmed by a molecular phylogenetic study published in 2016.
01Taxonomy
The first formal description of the lesser noddy was by the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck in 1823 under the binomial name Sterna tenuirostris. The genus Anous was introduced by the English naturalist James Francis Stephens in 1826. Anous is Ancient Greek for "stupid" or "foolish". The specific name tenuirostris is from the Latin tenuis for "slender" and -rostris "-billed".
There are two subspecies:
- A. t. tenuirostris (Temminck, 1823) - islands of the west & north Indian Ocean
- A. t. melanops Gould, 1846 - Houtman Abrolhos Islands (Western Australia)
02Description
The lesser noddy is 30-34 cm (12-13 in) in length with a wingspan of 58-63 cm (23-25 in) and a weight of 97-120 g (3.4-4.2 oz). The plumage is brownish black. The forehead and crown are lighter in colour. This species is smaller and slightly paler than the similar black noddy and has pale rather than dark lores.
03Ecology
Giant tortoises have been observed to hunt the bird on Fregate Island in the Seychelles.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Lesser noddy”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Anous tenuirostris 01.jpg by B.navez, CC BY-SA 3.0
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