The brown booby ( Sula leucogaster) is a large seabird of the booby family Sulidae, of which it is perhaps the most common and widespread species.
Taxonomy
The brown booby was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in his
Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux in 1781.
The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the
Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text.
Buffon did not include a scientific name with his description but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist
Pieter Boddaert coined the
binomial name Pelecanus leucogaster in his catalogue of the
Planches Enluminées.
The type locality is
Cayenne in
French Guiana.
The current
genus Sula was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760.
The word
Sula is Norwegian for a
gannet; the specific
leucogaster is from
Ancient Greek leuko for "white" and
gastēr for "belly".
In 2024, the subspecies
brewsteri and
etesiaca were declared a distinct species by the name
Cocos booby by the American Ornithological Society, Clements Checklist, and the IOC World Bird List.
There are two recognised subspecies:
-
S. l. leucogaster (Boddaert, 1783) – Caribbean and Atlantic Islands
-
S. l. plotus (Forster, JR, 1844) – Red Sea through the Indian Ocean to the west and central Pacific
6A5A3225.jpg|male S. l. plotus, Queensland
Brown booby (Sula leucogaster plotus) female in flight Michaelmas Cay.jpg|female S. l. plotus, Queensland
Description
The booby's head and upper body (back) is covered in dark brown to blackish plumage, with the remainder (belly) being a contrasting white. The bare-part colours vary geographically, but not seasonally.
The species also displays sexual dimorphism of the bare part colours, the males having a blue
Eye-ring, as opposed to the yellow orbital ring of the female.
Female boobies reach about in length; their wingspans measure up to , and they can weigh up to . Male boobies reach about in length; their wingspans measure up to , and they can weigh up to .
Unlike other species of sulid, the juvenile plumage already resembles that of the adult.
Their beaks are quite sharp and contain many jagged edges. They have fairly short wings resulting in a fast flap rate, but long, tapered tails. While these birds are typically silent, bird watchers have reported occasional sounds similar to grunting or quacking.
Brown booby (Sula leucogaster plotus) pair Michaelmas Cay.jpg|Female and male S. l. plotus at their stick nest
Sula leucogaster MHNT.ZOO.2010.11.45.7.jpg|eggs - MHNT
Atobá com filho no ninho no Arquipélago de São Pedro e São Paulo.jpg|Male with chick in São Pedro and São Paulo Archipelago, Pernambuco, Brazil
Brown booby (Sula leucogaster plotus) female and juvenile male on nest Michaelmas Cay.jpg|feeding S. l. plotus chick
Brown booby (Sula leucogaster leucogaster) juvenile Principe.jpg|Juvenile S. l. leucogaster, São Tomé and Príncipe
Ecology
This species breeds on islands and coasts in the
pantropical areas of the
Atlantic and
Pacific oceans. They frequent the breeding grounds of the islands in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. With the rise in pollution in the world, brown boobies have been using
marine debris to make their nests, with 90.1% of these nest were consisted of plastic, while nests near shipwreck have a high percentage of the wreckage debris.
This bird nests in large colonies, laying two chalky blue eggs on the ground in a mound of broken shells and vegetation, but usually raises just one chick, the second one to hatch being unable to compete for food with its older sibling, or even ejected from the nest by it.
It
bird migration at sea over a wider area.
Brown booby pairs may remain together over several seasons. They perform elaborate greeting rituals, and are also spectacular divers, plunging into the ocean at high speed. They eat mainly small fish (such as flying fish, mullets, , anchovies,
Further reading
External links
