The noddies, forming the genus ''Anous'', is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

seabirds 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 envi ...

in family

Laridae Laridae is a family of seabirds in the order Charadriiformes that includes the gulls, terns, skimmers and kittiwakes. It includes around 100 species arranged into 22 genera. They are an adaptable group of mostly aerial birds found worldwide. ...

which also contains the gulls, terns and skimmers. The genus contains five

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

. The noddies inhabit

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...

oceans and have a worldwide distribution, ranging from

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

to the

Tuamotu Archipelago The Tuamotu Archipelago or the Tuamotu Islands (french: Îles Tuamotu, officially ) are a French Polynesian chain of just under 80 islands and atolls in the southern Pacific Ocean. They constitute the largest chain of atolls in the world, extendin ...

and Australia in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

, from the

Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; ...

to the

Seychelles Seychelles (, ; ), officially the Republic of Seychelles (french: link=no, République des Seychelles; Creole: ''La Repiblik Sesel''), is an archipelagic state consisting of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, ...

and Australia in the Indian Ocean and in the Caribbean to

Tristan da Cunha Tristan da Cunha (), colloquially Tristan, is a remote group of volcanic islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world, lying approximately from Cape Town in South Africa, from Saint Helena a ...

in the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

. 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.

Taxonomy

The genus was introduced by the English naturalist

James Francis Stephens James Francis Stephens (16 September 1792 – 22 December 1852) was an English entomologist and naturalist. He is known for his 12 volume '' Illustrations of British Entomology'' (1846) and the ''Manual of British Beetles'' (1839). Early l ...

in 1826. ''Anous'' is

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

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
/ref> A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2007 found that the genus ''Anous'' was a sister group to a clade 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 The grey noddy or grey ternlet (''Anous albivitta'') is a seabird belonging to the family Laridae. It was once regarded as a pale morph of the blue noddy (''Anous cerulea'') but is now usually considered to be a separate species. Taxonomy Th ...

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. NoddiesNesting4220810091 8a09d6fe50 o

References

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