Blue noddy
| Blue noddy | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Charadriiformes |
| Family: | Laridae |
| Genus: | Procelsterna |
| Species: | P. cerulea |
| Binomial name | |
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Procelsterna cerulea (Bennett, FD, 1840) |
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The blue noddy (Procelsterna cerulea) is a seabird in the family Laridae. It is also known as the blue-grey noddy.
It is found in American Samoa, the Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, New Caledonia, Samoa, Tonga (Niua), Tuvalu and Hawaii. It has occurred as a vagrant in Australia and Japan. Its natural habitat is open, shallow seas in tropical and subtropical regions.
The first formal description of the blue noddy was by Frederick Debell Bennett in 1840 under the binomial name Sterna cerulea. The specific name cerulea is Latin for "dark blue".
A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2016 found that the five noddies formed a single clade with the blue noddy and the grey noddy in Procelsterna nested between the species in the genus Anous. The authors proposed that the noddies should be merged into a single genus Anous and that Procelsterna should be considered as a junior synonym.
There are five subspecies:
The grey noddy (Procelsterna albivitta) replaces it to the south of its range; the two were formerly considered to be a single species but are now often split.
The blue noddy is 25–28 cm (9.8–11.0 in) in length and has a wingspan of 46–60 cm (18–24 in).
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Wikipedia