Masked boobies
| Masked booby | |
|---|---|
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| Austropacific masked booby (S. d. personata) with chick (background) | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Suliformes |
| Family: | Sulidae |
| Genus: | Sula |
| Species: | S. dactylatra |
| Binomial name | |
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Sula dactylatra (Lesson, 1831) |
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| Subspecies | |
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The masked booby (Sula dactylatra) is a large seabird of the booby family, Sulidae. First described by French naturalist René-Primevère Lesson in 1831, the masked booby is one of six species of booby in the genus Sula. This species breeds on islands in tropical oceans, except in the eastern Atlantic; in the eastern Pacific it is replaced by the Nazca booby, Sula granti, which was formerly regarded as a subspecies of masked booby. It is also called the masked gannet or the blue-faced booby.
The masked booby nests in small colonies, laying two chalky white eggs on sandy beaches in shallow depressions. The first chick usually kills the second one.
French naturalist René-Primevère Lesson described the masked booby in 1829 in Louis Isidore Duperrey's work Voyage autour du Monde, Exécuté par Ordre du Roi, Sur la Corvette de Sa Majesté, La Coquille, pendant les années 1822, 1823, 1824 et 1825, after encountering it in Ascension Island in the South Atlantic. The species name is from the Ancient Greek word dactyl "finger" and Latin ater "black". "Black fingers" refers to the splayed wingtips in flight.Carl Jakob Sundevall described it as Sula cyanops in 1837.
John Gould described Sula personata in 1846 from Australia, the species name being the Latin adjective personata "masked". Gould adopted the name Sula cyanops in his 1865 Handbook to the Birds of Australia.
Sundevall's binomial name was followed as Lesson's 1829 record did not sufficiently describe the species, however Gregory Mathews pointed out that although Lesson's 1829 account did not describe the bird, his 1831 account did and thus predated Sundevall by six years, and hence Sula dactylactra had priority. The American Ornithological Union followed in their 17th supplement to their checklist in 1920.
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