| Ivory gull | |
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Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Charadriiformes |
| Family: | Laridae |
| Genus: | Pagophila Kaup, 1829 |
| Species: | P. eburnea |
| Binomial name | |
| Pagophila eburnea (Phipps, 1774) | |
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| Synonyms | |
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The ivory gull (Pagophila eburnea) is a small gull, the only species in the genus Pagophila. It breeds in the high Arctic and has a circumpolar distribution through Greenland, northernmost North America, and Eurasia.
The ivory gull was initially described by Constantine Phipps, 2nd Baron Mulgrave in 1774 as Larus eburneus from a specimen collected on Spitsbergen during his 1773 expedition towards the North Pole. [2] Johann Jakob Kaup later recognized the unique traits of the ivory gull and gave it a monotypic genus, Pagophila, in 1829. [2] Johan Ernst Gunnerus later gave the species a new specific name, Pagophila alba. [2] [ dubious – discuss ] The genus name Pagophila is from Ancient Greek pagos, "sea-ice", and philos, "-loving", and specific eburnea is Latin for "ivory-coloured", from ebur, "ivory". [3] Today some authors consider the ivory gull not deserving of its monotypic genus, instead choosing to merge it, along with the other monotypic gulls, back into Larus. [2] However, most authors have not chosen to do so. The ivory gull has no subspecies. [2] No fossil members of this genus are known. [4]
This gull has traditionally been believed to be most closely related to either the kittiwakes, Sabine's gull, or Ross's gull. [2] It differs anatomically from the other genera by having a relatively short tarsometatarsus, a narrower os pubis, and potentially more flexibility in skull kinetic structure. [2] Structurally, it is most similar to the kittiwakes; however, recent genetic analysis based on mtDNA sequences shows that Sabine's gull is the ivory gull's closest relative, followed by the kittiwakes, with Ross's gull and swallow-tailed gull sharing a clade with these species. [2] [5] Pagophila is maintained as a unique genus because of the bird's morphological, behavioral and ecological differences from these species. [2]
Colloquial names from Newfoundland include slob gull (from "slob", a local name for drift ice) and ice partridge, from a vague resemblance to a ptarmigan. [6]
This species is easy to identify. At approximately 43 centimetres (17 in), it has a different, more pigeon-like shape than the Larus gulls, but the adult has completely white plumage, lacking the grey back of other gulls. The thick bill is blue with a yellow tip, and the legs are black. The bill is tipped with red, and the eyes have a fleshy, bright red eye-ring in the breeding season. Its flight call cry is a harsh, tern-like keeeer. It has many other vocalizations, including a warbling "fox-call" that indicates potential predators such as an Arctic fox, polar bear, Glaucous Gull or human near a nest, a "long-call" given with wrists out, elongated neck and downward-pointed bill, given in elaborate display to other Ivories during breeding, and a plaintive begging call given in courtship by females to males, accompanied by head-tossing. Young birds have a dusky face and variable amounts of black flecking in the wings and tail. The juveniles take two years to attain full adult plumage. There are no differences in appearance across the species’ geographic range. [2]
Measurements: [7]
In North America, it only breeds in the Canadian Arctic. [4] Seymour Island, Nunavut is home to the largest known breeding colony, while Ellesmere, Devon, Cornwallis, and north Baffin islands are known locations of breeding colonies. [4] It is believed that there are other small breeding colonies of less than six birds that are still undiscovered. [4] There are no records of the ivory gull breeding in Alaska. [4]
During the winter, ivory gulls live near polynyas, or a large area of open water surrounded by sea ice. [4] North American birds, along with some from Greenland and Europe, winter along the 2000 km of ice edge stretching between 50° and 64° N from the Labrador Sea to Davis Strait that is bordered by Labrador and southwestern Greenland. [4] Wintering gulls are often seen on the eastern coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador and occasionally appear on the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the interior of Labrador. [4] It also winters from October through June in the Bering Sea and Chukchi Seas. [4] It is most widespread throughout the polynyas and pack ice of the Bering Sea. [4] It is also vagrant throughout coastal Canada and the northeastern United States, though records of individuals as far south as California and Georgia have been reported, as well as The British Isles, with most records from late November through early March. [4] Juveniles tend to wander further from the Arctic than adults. [4]
Ivory gulls migrate only short distances south in autumn, most of the population wintering in northern latitudes at the edge of the pack ice, although some birds reach more temperate areas.
It takes fish and crustaceans, rodents, eggs and small chicks but is also an opportunist scavenger, often found on seal or porpoise corpses. It has been known to follow polar bears and other predators to feed on the remains of their kills.
The ivory gull breeds on Arctic coasts and cliffs, laying one to three olive eggs in a ground nest lined with moss, lichens, or seaweed.
In 2012 the total population of ivory gulls was estimated to be between 19,000 and 27,000 individuals. [1] The majority of these were in Russia with 2,500–10,000 along the Arctic coastline, 4,000 on the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago [8] and 8,000 on Franz Josef Land and Victoria Island. There were also estimated to be around 4,000 individuals in Greenland [9] and in the years 2002–03, 500–700 were recorded in Canada. [1] Examination of data collected on an icebreaker plying between Greenland and Svalbard between 1988 and 2014, by Claude Joiris of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, found a sevenfold fall in ivory gull numbers after 2007. [10] The species is rapidly declining in Canada, while in other parts of its range its population is poorly known. The Canadian population in the early 2000s were approximately 80% lower than in the 1980s. [10]
Illegal hunting may be one of the causes of the decline in the Canadian population, and a second cause may be the decline in sea ice. Ivory gulls breed near to sea ice and the loss may make it difficult to feed their chicks. [10] [11]
The species is classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as "Near Threatened". [1]
An ivory gull is the inspiration for the eponymous carving in Holling C. Holling's classic Newbery Medal-winning children's book, Seabird.
Baffin Island, in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, is the largest island in Canada, the second largest island in the Americas, and the fifth-largest island in the world. Its area is 507,451 km2 (195,928 sq mi) with a population density of 0.03/km2; the population was 13,039 according to the 2021 Canadian census; and it is located at 68°N70°W. It also contains the city of Iqaluit, which is the capital of Nunavut.
Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the family Laridae in the suborder Lari. They are most closely related to the terns and skimmers and distantly related to auks, and even more distantly to waders. Until the 21st century, most gulls were placed in the genus Larus, but that arrangement is now considered polyphyletic, leading to the resurrection of several genera. An older name for gulls is mews, which is cognate with German Möwe, Danish måge, Swedish mås, Dutch meeuw, Norwegian måke/måse, and French mouette, and can still be found in certain regional dialects.
The common gull or sea mew is a medium-sized gull that breeds in the Palearctic. The closely related short-billed gull is sometimes included in this species, which may be known collectively as "mew gull". Many common gulls migrate further south in winter.
The laughing gull is a medium-sized gull of North and South America. Named for its laugh-like call, it is an opportunistic omnivore and scavenger. It breeds in large colonies mostly along the Atlantic coast of North America, the Caribbean, and northern South America. The two subspecies are L. a. megalopterus — which can be seen from southeast Canada down to Central America — and L. a. atricilla, which appears from the West Indies to the Venezuelan islands. The laughing gull was long placed in the genus Larus until its present placement in Leucophaeus.
The great black-backed gull is the largest member of the gull family. Described by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as "the king of the Atlantic waterfront", it is a very aggressive hunter, pirate, and scavenger. It breeds on the European and North American coasts and islands of the North Atlantic and is fairly sedentary, though some move farther south or inland to large lakes and reservoirs. The adult great black-backed gull has a white head, neck and underparts, dark grey wings and back, pink legs and yellow bill.
The glaucous gull is a large gull, the second-largest gull in the world. The genus name is from Latin larus, which appears to have referred to a gull or other large seabird. The specific name hyperboreus is Latin for "northern" from the Ancient Greek Huperboreoi people from the far north "Glaucous" is from Latin glaucus and denotes the grey colour of the gull. An older English name for this species is burgomaster.
The Iceland gull is a medium-sized gull that breeds in the Arctic regions of Canada and Greenland, but not in Iceland, where it is only seen during winter. The genus name is from Latin larus, which appears to have referred to a gull or other large seabird. The specific name glaucoides denotes its resemblance to Larus glaucus, a synonym of Larus hyperboreus, the glaucous gull; -oides is Ancient Greek and means "resembling".
The ring-billed gull is a medium-sized gull. The genus name is from Latin Larus which appears to have referred to a gull or other large seabird. The specific delawarensis refers to the Delaware River.
The king eider is a large sea duck that breeds along Northern Hemisphere Arctic coasts of northeast Europe, North America and Asia. The birds spend most of the year in coastal marine ecosystems at high latitudes, and migrate to Arctic tundra to breed in June and July. They lay four to seven eggs in a scrape on the ground lined with grass and down.
The little auk or dovekie is a small auk, the only member of the genus Alle. Alle is the Sami name of the long-tailed duck; it is onomatopoeic and imitates the call of the drake duck. Linnaeus was not particularly familiar with the winter plumages of either the auk or the duck, and appears to have confused the two species. Other common names include rotch, rotche, bullbird, and sea dove, although the latter sometimes refers to a relative of dovekies, the black guillemot.
The thick-billed murre or Brünnich's guillemot is a bird in the auk family (Alcidae). This bird is named after the Danish zoologist Morten Thrane Brünnich. The very deeply black North Pacific subspecies Uria lomvia arra is also called Pallas' murre after its describer.
Sabine's gull also known as the fork-tailed gull or xeme, is a small gull. It is the only species placed in the genus Xema. It breeds in colonies on coasts and tundra, laying two or three spotted olive-brown eggs in a ground nest lined with grass. Sabine's gull is pelagic outside the breeding season. It takes a wide variety of mainly animal food, and will eat any suitable small prey.
The black-legged kittiwake is a seabird species in the gull family Laridae. This species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae as Larus tridactylus. The English name is derived from its call, a shrill 'kittee-wa-aaake, kitte-wa-aaake'. In North America, this species is known as the black-legged kittiwake to differentiate it from the red-legged kittiwake, but in Europe, where it is the only member of the genus, it is often known just as kittiwake.
The swallow-tailed gull is an equatorial seabird in the gull family, Laridae. It is the only species in the genus Creagrus, which derives from the Latin Creagra and the Greek kreourgos which means butcher, also from kreas, meat; according to Jobling it would mean "hook for meat" referring to the hooked bill of this species. It was first described by French naturalist and surgeon Adolphe-Simon Neboux in 1846. Its scientific name is originally derived from the Greek word for gull, "Glaros" and via Latin Larus, "gull" and furca "two-tined fork". It spends most of its life flying and hunting over the open ocean. The main breeding location is in the Galápagos Islands, particularly the rocky shores and cliffs of Hood, Tower and Wolf Islands, with lower numbers on most of the other islands. It is more common on the eastern islands where the water is warmer.
Prince Leopold Island is an island in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada. It is located in Lancaster Sound at the junction of Prince Regent Inlet and Barrow Strait. Somerset Island is situated 13 km (8.1 mi) to the southwest; Port Leopold, an abandoned trading post, is the closest landmark. The island is significant as a summer habitat and breeding ground for large populations of several arctic bird species.
Pagophily or pagophilia is the preference or dependence on water ice for some or all activities and functions. The term Pagophila is derived from the Ancient Greek pagos meaning "sea-ice", and philos meaning "-loving".
Seymour Island is an uninhabited island in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of northern Canada's territory of Nunavut. A member of the Berkeley Islands group, it is located approximately 30 mi (48 km) north of northern Bathurst Island. Between Seymour Island and Bathurst Island lies Helena Island. Penny Strait lies about 90 km (56 mi) to the east where open water polynyas occur.
Hanna Shoal is a shallow, natural shoal located off the coast of northwest Alaska in the Chukchi Sea. The region around Hanna Shoal is one of the Chukchi Sea’s most biologically productive areas.
Tarium Niryutait is a marine protected area (MPA) located in the coastal areas of the Yukon and Northwest Territories in Canada. It is located within the Inuvialuit Settlement Region and was the first Arctic MPA established in Canada. The MPA was established with the goal of protecting Beluga whales and the biodiversity of other bird and fish species and their habitats.
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