The brown skua (''Stercorarius antarcticus''), also known as the Antarctic skua, subantarctic skua, southern great skua, southern skua, or hākoakoa (

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

), is a large

seabird 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 enviro ...

that breeds in the

subantarctic The sub-Antarctic zone is a region in the Southern Hemisphere, located immediately north of the Antarctic region. This translates roughly to a latitude of between 46° and 60° south of the Equator. The subantarctic region includes many islands ...

and

Antarctic The Antarctic ( or , American English also or ; commonly ) is a polar region around Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica, the Kerguelen Plateau and other ...

zones and moves further north when not breeding. Its

taxonomy Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

is highly complex and a matter of dispute, with some

splitting Splitting may refer to: * Splitting (psychology) * Lumpers and splitters, in classification or taxonomy * Wood splitting * Tongue splitting * Splitting, railway operation Mathematics * Heegaard splitting * Splitting field * Splitting principle * ...

it into two or three species: Falkland skua (''S. antarcticus''), Tristan skua (''S. hamiltoni''), and subantarctic skua (''S. lönnbergi''). To further confuse, it hybridizes with both the south polar and Chilean skuas, and the entire group has been considered to be a

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

of the

great skua The great skua (''Stercorarius skua''), sometimes known by the name bonxie in Britain, is a large seabird in the skua family Stercorariidae. It is roughly the size of a herring gull. It mainly eats fish caught at the sea surface or taken fr ...

, a species otherwise restricted to the

Northern Hemisphere The Northern Hemisphere is the half of Earth that is north of the Equator. For other planets in the Solar System, north is defined as being in the same celestial hemisphere relative to the invariable plane of the solar system as Earth's Nort ...

Diet

Brown Skua eyeing a King Penguin carcass (5724592724)

It feeds on

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

(often via

kleptoparasitism Kleptoparasitism (etymologically, parasitism by theft) is a form of feeding in which one animal deliberately takes food from another. The strategy is evolutionarily stable when stealing is less costly than direct feeding, which can mean when foo ...

), penguin chicks and other

s, small

mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...

s, eggs and

carrion Carrion () is the decaying flesh of dead animals, including human flesh. Overview Carrion is an important food source for large carnivores and omnivores in most ecosystems. Examples of carrion-eaters (or scavengers) include crows, vultures, c ...

Description

This is the heaviest species of

skua The skuas are a group of predatory seabirds with seven species forming the genus ''Stercorarius'', the only genus in the family Stercorariidae. The three smaller skuas, the long-tailed skua, the Arctic skua, and the pomarine skua are called jae ...

and rivals the largest

gull Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the family Laridae in the suborder Lari. They are most closely related to the terns and skimmers and only distantly related to auks, and even more distantly to waders. Until the 21st century, m ...

s, the

great black-backed gull The great black-backed gull (''Larus marinus'') is the largest member of the gull family. Described by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as "the king of the Atlantic waterfront", it is a very aggressive hunter, pirate, and scavenger. It breeds on t ...

and

glaucous gull The glaucous gull (''Larus hyperboreus'') is a large gull, the second-largest gull in the world. It breeds in Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere and winters south to shores of the Holarctic. The genus name is from Latin ''larus'', which a ...

, as the heaviest species in the shorebird order although not as large in length or wingspan. It is in length, in wingspan and has a body mass of .''CRC Handbook of Avian Body Masses'' by John B. Dunning Jr. (Editor). CRC Press (1992), . ''S. a. hamiltoni'' measured on

Gough Island upright=1.3, Map of Gough island Gough Island ( ), also known historically as Gonçalo Álvares, is a rugged volcanic island in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is a dependency of Tristan da Cunha and part of the British overseas territory of Sain ...

, weighed an average of in 9 males and in 9 females. ''S. a. lonnbergi'' measured in the

Chatham Islands The Chatham Islands ( ) (Moriori: ''Rēkohu'', 'Misty Sun'; mi, Wharekauri) are an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean about east of New Zealand's South Island. They are administered as part of New Zealand. The archipelago consists of about te ...

weighed an average of in 30 males and an average of in 32 females. The latter is one of the highest colony mean body mass for any living species of shorebird.''CRC Handbook of Avian Body Masses, 2nd Edition'' by John B. Dunning Jr. (Editor). CRC Press (2008), . A study in 2016 reported that brown skuas can identify individual human beings, possibly indicating high cognitive abilities. Brown skuas have been noted for sometimes bonding with humans who live for extended periods in Antarctica, such as the

Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or "canonical") ...

clergymen at Trinity Church, and engaging in playful or apparently mischievous behavior with them.

References

External links

* Brown skua, subantarctic skua
Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds
{{Taxonbar, from=Q18987

brown skua The brown skua (''Stercorarius antarcticus''), also known as the Antarctic skua, subantarctic skua, southern great skua, southern skua, or hākoakoa (Māori), is a large seabird that breeds in the subantarctic and Antarctic zones and moves furth ...

Birds of Antarctica Birds of New Zealand Birds of the Falkland Islands Birds of Southern Africa Birds of islands of the Atlantic Ocean Fauna of the Prince Edward Islands Fauna of Heard Island and McDonald Islands Birds of subantarctic islands

Taxa named by René Lesson Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN

Diet

Description

References

Further reading

External links