booby¹

 

common name for some members of the family Sulidae, large, streamlined sea birds. Tropical and subtropical members of the family are called boobies; those of northern waters are called gannets. These birds have heavy bodies; long, pointed wings; long, wedge-shaped tails; and short, stout legs. They fish by diving on their prey from great heights and pursuing it underwater; air sacs under their skin cushion the impact with the water and provide buoyancy, as with pelicans. The masked, red-footed (Sula sula), and brown (S. leucogaster) boobies are found the world over; the Peruvian and blue-footed (S. nebouxii) boobies, on the west coasts of the Americas; and the Abbott's booby, in the Indian Ocean. The common gannet of the North Atlantic, Morus bassanus, breeds in the British Isles, in the Gaspé region of Canada, and on Bird Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. A Pacific gannet is one of the chief guano producers of the offshore islands of Peru. Gannets build crude nests of debris on narrow cliff ledges. The female lays a single egg, which she and the male incubate by covering it with their feet. Gannets have strong migration tendencies, while the boobies do not. The name booby is descriptive not only of the rather stupid facial expression of these birds, but also of their unwary, gullible behavior when hunted by man—a factor that accounts for their diminishing numbers. Boobies and gannets are classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Aves, order Pelecaniformes, family Sulidae.

Boobies
Red-footed Booby
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Pelecaniformes Family: Sulidae Genus: Sula Brisson, 1760
Species
Sula nebouxii Sula variegata Sula dactylatra Sula granti Sula sula Sula leucogaster For fossil species, see text

The boobies are part of the family Sulidae, a group of seabirds closely related to gannets. The true boobies all belong to the genus Sula.

These are large birds with long pointed wings and long bills. They hunt fish by diving from a height into the sea and pursuing their prey underwater. They have facial air sacs under their skin which cushion the impact with the water.

Boobies are colonial breeders on islands and coasts. They normally lay one or more chalky-blue eggs on the ground or sometimes in a tree nest. Their name is possibly based on the Spanish slang term bubi, meaning "dunce", as these tame birds had a habit of landing on-board sailing ships, where they were easily captured and eaten.

Owing to this, boobies are often mentioned to have been caught and eaten by shipwrecked sailors, notably Captain Bligh of HMAV Bounty and his loyalists during their famous voyage after being set adrift by Fletcher Christian and his mutineers.

Systematics and evolution

Five of the six extant Sulidae species called "boobies" are in the genus Sula, while the three gannets are usually treated in the genus Morus. Abbott's Booby was formerly included in Sula but is now placed in a monotypic genus Papasula which represents an ancient lineage perhaps closer to Morus (Friesen et al. 2002). Some authorities consider that all nine species should be considered congeneric, in Sula. However, they are readily told apart by means of osteology, and the distinct lineages of gannets and boobies are known to have existed in such form since at least the Middle Miocene, c.15 mya (Olson 1985).

The fossil record of boobies is not as well documented as that of gannets; possible reasons could be that booby species were less numerous in the late Miocene to Pliocene when gannets had their highest diversity, or that due to the more tropical distribution of boobies, many fossil species have simply not been found yet as most localities are in continental North America or Europe.

GENUS SULA

• Blue-footed Booby, Sula nebouxii
• Peruvian Booby, Sula variegata
• Masked Booby, Sula dactylatra
  • Tasman Booby, Sula (dactylatra) tasmani - possibly extinct (c.1790?^[1])
• Nazca Booby, Sula granti (formerly S. dactylatra granti)
• Red-footed Booby, Sula sula
• Brown Booby, Sula leucogaster

• Sula willetti (Late Miocene of California) - may belong into Morus
• Sula humeralis (fossil; Middle Pliocene)
• Sula sulita (fossil; Pisco Late Miocene of Peru)
• Sula magna (fossil; Pisco Late Miocene/Early Pliocene of Peru)

Placement of "Sula" ronzoni (Early Oligocene of Ronzon, France) in this genus (and indeed in the Sulidae) is uncertain; it was initially described as a Mergus sea-duck, but this is incorrect. Later, it was proposed to be related to cormorants and the genus Prophalacrocorax was erected for it; this is erroneous (Olson 1985).

References

• Friesen, V. L.; Anderson, D. J.; Steeves, T. E.; Jones, H. & Schreiber, E. A. (2002): Molecular Support for Species Status of the Nazca Booby (Sula granti). Auk 119(3): 820–826. [English with Spanish abstract] DOI: 10.1642/0004-8038(2002)119[0820:MSFSSO]2.0.CO;2 PDF fulltext

Footnotes

1. ^ This form poses major problems. Initially, it was described as an extinct species, but it seems nowadays that these individuals merely represent the largest birds of the Tasman Sea Masked Booby which was separated as the subspecies S. dactylatra fullagari. As tasmani had been described first, fullagari becomes a junior synonym if the extinct and the extant birds are considered to belong to the same taxon, which would thus be named S. d. tasmani (fide Holdaway & Anderson, 2001). If one assumes that the differences are not merely related to size, the extinct birds - which are certainly not a distinct species as initially believed - would be named S. d. tasmani (fide van Tets et al., 1988), and the extant subspecies would retain the name fullagari. There is sufficient material for DNA analyses to settle this question.

External links

• ARKive - images and movies of the Abbott's booby (Papasula abbotti)
• Booby videos on the Internet Bird Collection
• Sibling rivalry between Booby chicks Video

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