The Anatidae are the biological family of water birds that includes ducks, geese, and swans. The family has a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring on all the world's continents except Antarctica. These birds are adapted for swimming, floating on the water surface, and in some cases diving in at least shallow water. The family contains around 174 species in 43 genera.
Phalacrocoracidae is a family of approximately 40 species of aquatic birds commonly known as cormorants and shags. Several different classifications of the family have been proposed, but in 2021 the International Ornithologists' Union (IOU) adopted a consensus taxonomy of seven genera. The great cormorant and the common shag are the only two species of the family commonly encountered in Britain and Ireland and "cormorant" and "shag" appellations have been later assigned to different species in the family somewhat haphazardly.
A booby is a seabird in the genus Sula, part of the family Sulidae. Boobies are closely related to the gannets (Morus), which were formerly included in Sula.
Larus is a large genus of gulls with worldwide distribution.
The bird family Sulidae comprises the gannets and boobies. Collectively called sulids, they are medium-large coastal seabirds that plunge-dive for fish and similar prey. The 10 species in this family are often considered congeneric in older sources, placing all in the genus Sula. However, Sula and Morus (gannets) can be readily distinguished by morphological, behavioral, and DNA sequence characters. Abbott's booby (Papasula) is given its own genus, as it stands apart from both in these respects. It appears to be a distinct and ancient lineage, maybe closer to the gannets than to the true boobies.
The northern gannet is a seabird, the largest species of the gannet family, Sulidae. It is native to the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean, breeding in Western Europe and Northeastern North America. It is the largest seabird in the northern Atlantic. The sexes are similar in appearance. The adult northern gannet has a mainly white streamlined body with a long neck, and long and slender wings. It is 87–100 cm long with a 170–180 cm (67–71 in) wingspan. The head and nape have a buff tinge that is more prominent in breeding season, and the wings are edged with dark brown-black feathers. The long, pointed bill is blue-grey, contrasting with black, bare skin around the mouth and eyes. Juveniles are mostly grey-brown, becoming increasingly white in the five years it takes them to reach maturity.
The Australasian gannet, also known as the Australian gannet or tākapu, is a large seabird of the booby and gannet family, Sulidae. Adults are mostly white, with black flight feathers at the wingtips and lining the trailing edge of the wing. The central tail feathers are also black. The head is tinged buff-yellow, with a pearly grey bill edged in dark grey or black, and blue-rimmed eyes. Young birds have mottled plumage in their first year, dark above and light below. The head is an intermediate mottled grey, with a dark bill. The birds gradually acquire more white in subsequent seasons until they reach maturity after five years.
The red-footed booby is a large seabird of the booby family, Sulidae. Adults always have red feet, but the colour of the plumage varies. They are powerful and agile fliers, but they are clumsy in takeoffs and landings. They are found widely in the tropics, and breed colonially in coastal regions, especially islands. The species faces few natural or man-made threats, although its population is declining; it is considered to be a least-concern species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The Cape gannet is a large seabird of the gannet family, Sulidae.
Sula Sgeir is a small, uninhabited Scottish islet in the North Atlantic, 18 kilometres west of Rona. One of the most remote islands of the British Isles, it lies approximately forty nautical miles north of Lewis and is best known for its population of gannets. It has a narrow elongated shape running north-northeast to south-southwest, and is approximately 900 m long by typically 100 m wide.
The masked booby, also called the masked gannet or the blue-faced booby, is a large seabird of the booby and gannet family, Sulidae. First described by the French naturalist René-Primevère Lesson in 1831, the masked booby is one of six species of booby in the genus Sula. It has a typical sulid body shape, with a long pointed yellowish bill, long neck, aerodynamic body, long slender wings and pointed tail. The adult is bright white with black wings, a black tail and a dark face mask; at 75–85 cm (30–33 in) long, it is the largest species of booby. The sexes have similar plumage. This species ranges across tropical oceans, except in the eastern Atlantic and eastern Pacific. In the latter, it is replaced by the Nazca booby, which was formerly regarded as a subspecies of masked booby.
The great albatrosses are seabirds in the genus Diomedea in the albatross family. The genus Diomedea formerly included all albatrosses except the sooty albatrosses, but in 1996 the genus was split, with the mollymawks and the North Pacific albatrosses both being elevated to separate genera.
The North Pacific albatrosses are large seabirds from the genus Phoebastria in the albatross family. They are the most tropical of the albatrosses, with two species nesting in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, one on sub-tropical islands south of Japan, and one nesting on the equator.
Paleontology or palaeontology is the study of prehistoric life forms on Earth through the examination of plant and animal fossils. This includes the study of body fossils, tracks (ichnites), burrows, cast-off parts, fossilised feces (coprolites), palynomorphs and chemical residues. Because humans have encountered fossils for millennia, paleontology has a long history both before and after becoming formalized as a science. This article records significant discoveries and events related to paleontology that occurred or were published in the year 1961.
The order Suliformes is an order recognised by the International Ornithologist's Union. In regard to the recent evidence that the traditional Pelecaniformes is polyphyletic, it has been suggested that the group be divided to reflect the true evolutionary relationships; a 2017 study indicated that they are most closely related to Otidiformes (bustards) and Ciconiiformes (storks).
Bimbisula is an extinct genus of sulid bird known from fossils discovered in Pliocene rocks of South Carolina, United States. The type and only named species is B. melanodactylos. The genus name is a combination of the Gullah name "Bimbi", meaning dawn, with "sula", an Icelandic word for "fool" that has been used to describe boobies in general. The species name is Greek for "black-fingered", referring to the iron staining that darkened the bones of the type specimen. Bimbisula melanodactylos is based on Charleston Museum PV2818, a partial skeleton including fragments of the skull, shoulder girdle, left upper arm, right hand, and fused hip vertebrae, and much of the right leg. It was collected in 1980 by James Malcolm from a locality along the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad in Charleston County in the vicinity of the Dorchester Road overpass. A second specimen assigned to the species, Science Museum of Minnesota P90.38.8, consists of a cranium discovered in October 1990 by Bruce Erickson near the Wando Terminal. Both specimens were found in the Goose Creek Limestone, of middle Pliocene age. The type specimen comes from the upper part of the formation, which is approximately 3.6 to 3.5 million years old. The exact stratigraphy of the second specimen is uncertain, and it may be anywhere from 3.9 to 3.5 million years old. Bimbisula was a large sulid, comparable in size to smaller species of gannets, and its skeleton shows a combination of booby-like and gannet-like characteristics.
Peripolocetus is a genus of balaenid baleen whale from the middle Miocene of Kern County, California.
The Temblor Formation is a geologic formation in California. It preserves fossils dating back from the Late Oligocene to the Middle Miocene of the Neogene period. It is notable for the famous Sharktooth Hill deposit.
Joseph Bryan Nelson MBE FRSE was a British ornithologist, environmental activist and academic. He was a prominent authority on seabirds, publishing numerous books and articles on gannets, cormorants and other species, teaching zoology at the University of Aberdeen, and conducting pioneering ornithological research in Jordan, Christmas Island and the Galápagos Islands. In his lifetime, Nelson was "acclaimed as the world's leading expert on the northern gannet". He also contributed to the creation of Christmas Island National Park, which helped to preserve the habitat of the endangered Abbott's booby.
