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Dictionary:

frigate bird


n.

Any of various tropical sea birds of the family Fregatidae that have long powerful wings, dark plumage, and a hooked beak and characteristically snatch food from other birds in flight. Also called man-o'-war bird.


 
 

Great frigate bird (Fregata minor)
(click to enlarge)
Great frigate bird (Fregata minor) (credit: Jen and Des Bartlett — Bruce Coleman Inc./EB Inc.)
Any member of five species of large seabirds constituting the family Fregatidae, found worldwide along tropical and semitropical coasts and islands. About the size of a hen, frigate birds have extremely long, slender wings, which span up to about 8 ft (2.3 m), and long, deeply forked tails. Most adult males are all black; most females are marked with white below. Both sexes have a bare-skinned throat pouch, tiny feet, and a long hooked bill that is used to attack and rob other seabirds of their fish. The courting male's throat pouch becomes bright red and is inflated to the size of a person's head. Perhaps the most aerial of all birds except the swifts, frigate birds land only to sleep or tend the nest.

For more information on frigate bird, visit Britannica.com.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: man-o'-war bird
or frigate-bird, most aerial of the water birds, found in the tropic seas. The man-o'-war bird's wingspread (71/2 ft/228.5 cm) is the largest in proportion to its body (3–4 lb/1.4–1.8 kg) of any bird. It can soar motionless by the hour and has been recorded in flights lasting nearly four days, spending most of that time several hundred feet or more in the air. It is awkward on land and in the sea, where the feathers quickly become water-logged.

The name derives from its grace and swiftness in the air and from its piratical tendencies; it harasses boobies, pelicans, cormorants, and gulls until they drop their catch. Man-o'-war birds feed chiefly on fish but also prey on the young of sea birds and on jellyfish, squid, and young turtles. They have long hooked beaks and forked tails; the male has an inflatable orange throat pouch that becomes red at courtship time.

The purplish black magnificent frigate-bird, Fregata magnificens, 40 in. (100 cm) long, is found from the Bahamas and Baja California S to Brazil and Ecuador; the great frigate-bird, F. minor, is found in the Indian Ocean. Other species, e.g., the Ascension and Christmas Island frigate-birds, are named for their habitats. The lesser frigate-bird, the smallest (32 in./80 cm) of the family, is found in the South Pacific and on the islands off Brazil and Madagascar.

Frigate-birds are classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Aves, order Pelecaniformes, family Fregatidae.


 
WordNet: frigate bird
Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: long-billed warm-water seabird with wide wingspan and forked tail
  Synonym: man-of-war bird


 
Wikipedia: frigatebird
For the nuclear test codenamed Frigate Bird, see the main article Operation Dominic I and II.
Frigatebirds
Lesserfrigbird.jpg
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Pelecaniformes
Family: Fregatidae
Degland & Gerbe, 1867
Genus: Fregata
Lacépède, 1799
Species

There are five species in the family Fregatidae, the frigatebirds. They are very closely related, and are all in the single genus Fregata. Frigatebirds attack other sea birds, hence the name. They are also sometimes called Man of War birds or Pirate birds. Since they are related to the pelicans, the term "frigate pelican" is also a name applied to them.

Frigatebirds are large, with iridescent black feathers (the females have a white underbelly), with long wings (male wingspan can reach 2.3 metres) and deeply-forked tails. The males have inflatable red-coloured throat pouches called "gula pouches", which they inflate to attract females during the mating season.

Frigatebirds are found over tropical oceans and ride warm updrafts. Therefore, they can often be spotted riding weather fronts and can signal changing weather patterns.

These birds do not swim and cannot walk well, and cannot take off from a flat surface. Having the largest wingspan to body weight ratio of any bird, they are essentially aerial, able to stay aloft for more than a week, landing only to roost or breed on trees or cliffs.

They lay one or two white eggs. Both parents take turns feeding for the first three months but then only the mother feeds the young for another eight months. It takes so long to rear a chick that frigatebirds cannot breed every year. It is typical to see juveniles as big as their parents waiting to be fed. When they sit waiting for endless hours in the hot sun, they assume an energy-efficient posture in which their head hangs down, and they sit so still that they seem dead. But when the parent returns, they will wake up, bob their head, and scream until the parent opens its mouth. The hungry juvenile plunges its head down the parent's throat and feeds at last.

As members of Pelecaniformes, frigatebirds have the key characteristics of all four toes being connected by the web, a gular sac (also called gular skin), and a furcula that is fused to the breastbone. Although there is definitely a web on the frigatebird foot, the webbing is reduced and part of each toe is free. Frigatebirds produce very little oil and therefore do not land in the ocean. The gular sac is used as part of a courtship display and is, perhaps, the most striking frigatebird feature.

Frigatebirds obtain most of their food by snatching it from the ocean surface. In this case an immature Great Frigatebird is snatching a Sooty Tern chick dropped by another frigatebird
Enlarge
Frigatebirds obtain most of their food by snatching it from the ocean surface. In this case an immature Great Frigatebird is snatching a Sooty Tern chick dropped by another frigatebird
Nesting frigatebird in the Galapagos Islands
Enlarge
Nesting frigatebird in the Galapagos Islands

Distribution and identifying characteristics differ among frigatebird species, and thus are addressed in species-specific articles.

Female Magnificent Frigatebird hovering in the wind.
Enlarge
Female Magnificent Frigatebird hovering in the wind.

Feeding

Frigatebirds' feeding habits are pelagic. Lacking the ability to take off from water, they snatch prey from the ocean surface or beach using their long, hooked bills. They catch fish, baby turtles and similar items in this way. Frigatebirds often rob other seabirds such boobies, tropicbirds, and shearwaters of their catch, using their speed and manoeuvrability to outrun and harass their victims until they regurgitate their stomach contents.

Species

See also

References

  • Harrison, Seabirds ISBN 0-7470-8028-8

External links


 
 

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Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more
WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Frigatebird" Read more

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