''Sterna'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

of terns in the bird family Laridae. The genus used to encompass most "white" terns indiscriminately, but mtDNA

sequence In mathematics, a sequence is an enumerated collection of objects in which repetitions are allowed and order matters. Like a set, it contains members (also called ''elements'', or ''terms''). The number of elements (possibly infinite) is calle ...

comparisons have recently determined that this arrangement is

paraphyletic In taxonomy (general), taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's most recent common ancestor, last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few Monophyly, monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be pa ...

. 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

''Sterna'' was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

in the tenth edition of his ''

Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the system, now known as binomial nomen ...

''. The type species is the common tern (''Sterna hirundo''). ''Sterna'' is derived from

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

"stearn" which appears in the poem '' The Seafarer''; a similar word was used to refer to terns by the

Frisians The Frisians are a Germanic ethnic group native to the coastal regions of the Netherlands and northwestern Germany. They inhabit an area known as Frisia and are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and, in Germany, ...

Species

The genus contains 13 species. For the "brown-backed terns" see genus ''

Onychoprion ''Onychoprion'', the "brown-backed terns", is a genus of seabirds in the family Laridae. The genus name is from Ancient Greek , "claw" or "nail", and , "saw". Species Although the genus was first described in 1832 by Johann Georg Wagler the four ...

''.

References

External links

* * Bird genera Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus {{Charadriiformes-stub