Marine Birds
Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same environmental problems and feeding niches have resulted in similar adaptations. The first seabirds evolved in the Cretaceous period, and modern seabird families emerged in the Paleogene. In general, seabirds live longer, breed later and have fewer young than other birds do, but they invest a great deal of time in their young. Most species nest in colonies, which can vary in size from a few dozen birds to millions. Many species are famous for undertaking long annual migrations, crossing the equator or circumnavigating the Earth in some cases. They feed both at the ocean's surface and below it, and even feed on each other. Seabirds can be highly pelagic, coastal, or in some cases spend a part of the year away from the sea entirely. Seabirds ...
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Sterna Fuscata Flight
''Sterna'' is a genus of terns in the bird family Laridae. The genus used to encompass most "white" terns indiscriminately, but mtDNA DNA sequence, sequence comparisons have recently determined that this arrangement is paraphyletic. It is now restricted to the typical medium-sized white terns occurring near-globally in coastal regions.Bridge, E. S.; Jones, A. W. & Baker, A. J. (2005)A phylogenetic framework for the terns (Sternini) inferred from mtDNA sequences: implications for taxonomy and plumage evolution. ''Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution'' 35: 459–469. Taxonomy The genus ''Sterna'' was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae, tenth edition of his ''Systema Naturae''. The type species is the common tern (''Sterna hirundo''). ''Sterna'' is derived from Old English "stearn" which appears in the poem ''The Seafarer (poem), The Seafarer''; a similar word was used to refer to terns by the Frisians. Species The ge ...
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