The noddies, forming the genus ''Anous'', is a genus of seabirds in family Laridae which also contains the gulls, terns and skimmers. The genus contains five species. The noddies inhabit tropical oceans and have a worldwide distribution, ranging from Hawaii to the Tuamotu Archipelago and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

in the Pacific Ocean, from the Red Sea to the Seychelles and Australia in the Indian Ocean and in the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

to Tristan da Cunha in the Atlantic Ocean. They nest in colonies on cliffs or in short trees or shrubs, seldom on the ground. The female lays one egg in each breeding season.''Anous''
TOLWEB These birds feed on small fish which they catch by dipping their bills beneath the surface while flying; they do not

plunge dive Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adaptation, adapted to life within the marine (ocean), marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent ev ...

Taxonomy

The genus was introduced by the English naturalist James Francis Stephens in 1826. ''Anous'' is Ancient Greek for "stupid" or "foolish". Noddies are often unwary and were well known to sailors for their apparent indifference to hunters or predators. They find safety in enormous numbers.Brown Noddy or Common Noddy
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molecular phylogenetic Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

study published in 2007 found that the genus ''Anous'' was a

sister group In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and t ...

to a

clade A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...

containing the terns, gulls and skimmers. A study of the phylogenetic relationship between the five noddies published in 2016 found that they formed a single clade with the blue noddy and the grey noddy which were at the time in the genus ''Procelsterna'' embedded within the three species in ''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 The Botanical and Zoological Codes of nomenclature treat the concept of synonymy differently. * In botanical nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that applies to a taxon that (now) goes by a different scientific name. For example, Linna ...

References

*Olsen and Larsson, ''Terns of Europe and North America'' {{Taxonbar, from=Q513741 Noddies (tern) Bird genera