The black noddy (''Anous minutus''), also known as white-capped noddy, is a species of

tern Terns are seabirds in the family Laridae, subfamily Sterninae, that have a worldwide distribution and are normally found near the sea, rivers, or wetlands. Terns are treated in eleven genera in a subgroup of the family Laridae, which also ...

in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Laridae. It is a medium-sized

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

with black plumage and a white cap that closely resembles the lesser noddy with which it was at one time considered

conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organism ...

. The black noddy has slightly darker plumage and dark rather than pale lores.

Taxonomy

The black noddy was first formally described by German naturalist and lawyer

Friedrich Boie Friedrich Boie (4 June 1789 – 3 March 1870) was a German entomologist, herpetologist, ornithologist, and lawyer.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Universi ...

in 1844 under its current

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, altho ...

. The

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

name ''Anous'' is

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

for "stupid" or "foolish". The specific name ''minutus'' is the Latin for "small". There are seven

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

: *''A. m. worcesteri'' (McGregor, 1911) – Cavilli Island and Tubbataha Reef (

Sulu Sea The Sulu Sea (; Tausug: ''Dagat sin Sūg''; ; ) is a body of water in the southwestern area of the Philippines, separated from the South China Sea in the northwest by Palawan and from the Celebes Sea in the southeast by the Sulu Archipela ...

) *''A. m. minutus'' Boie, 1844 – northeast Australia and

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

Tuamotu Archipelago The Tuamotu Archipelago or the Tuamotu Islands (, 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, extending (from northwest to ...

*''A. m. marcusi'' (Bryan, 1903) – Marcus and Wake Islands through

Micronesia Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of approximately 2,000 small islands in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: Maritime Southeast Asia to the west, Poly ...

to the

Caroline Islands The Caroline Islands (or the Carolines) are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically, they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in the cen ...

*''A. m. melanogenys''

Gray Grey (more frequent in British English) or gray (more frequent in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning that it has no chroma. It is the color of a cloud-covered s ...

, 1846 –

Hawaiian Islands The Hawaiian Islands () are an archipelago of eight major volcanic islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the Pacific Ocean, North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the Hawaii (island), island of Hawaii in the south to nort ...

to the

Kermadec Islands The Kermadec Islands ( ; ) are a subtropical island arc in the South Pacific Ocean northeast of New Zealand's North Island, and a similar distance southwest of Tonga. The islands are part of New Zealand. They are in total area and uninhabit ...

*''A. m. diamesus'' ( Heller and Snodgrass, 1901) –

Clipperton Island Clipperton Island ( ; ), also known as Clipperton Atoll and previously as Clipperton's Rock, is an uninhabited French coral atoll in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The only French territory in the North Pacific, Clipperton is from Paris, France ...

(off western Mexico) and

Cocos Island Cocos Island () is a volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean administered by Costa Rica, approximately southwest of the Costa Rican mainland. It constitutes the 11th of the 15 districts of Puntarenas Canton of the Puntarenas Province, Province of ...

(off western Costa Rica) *''A. m. americanus'' ( Mathews, 1912) – islands in the Caribbean Sea *''A. m. atlanticus'' ( Mathews, 1912) – tropical islands in the Atlantic

Description

The black noddy has a length of , a wingspan of and a weight of . It has dark plumage and a pale crown. There is a small white crescent under each eye and a white spot above. It has long tapering wings and a truncated tail. The sharply pointed bill is black. The feet are fully webbed and are black in most subspecies but orange in ''melanogenys''.

Behaviour

These birds may have become known as "noddies" because of the behaviour of both sexes as they constantly dip their heads during their breeding display. They are very tolerant of humans even to the extent that they can be picked up off the nest. They feed on fish and squid which they gather by flying low over the surface of the sea and picking them up. They may associate with other seabirds in areas where predatory fish are driving small fish to the surface. The nests of these birds consist of a level platform, often created in the branches of trees by a series of dried leaves covered with bird droppings. One egg is laid each season, and nests are re-used in subsequent years. The trees used for this purpose are various but the ''

Pisonia ''Pisonia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the Mirabilis jalapa, four o'clock flower family, Nyctaginaceae. It was named for Dutch Republic, Dutch physician and naturalist Willem Piso (1611–1678). Certain species in this genus are known as c ...

'' is most often used, and in large trees, there are often several nests. The

guano Guano (Spanish from ) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. Guano is a highly effective fertiliser due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. Guano was also, to a le ...

produced by these birds adds large quantities of nutrients to the soil which is of great importance to the plant communities on coral islands.

Distribution

The black noddy has a worldwide distribution in tropical and subtropical seas, with

colonies A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their '' metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often or ...

widespread in the Pacific Ocean and more scattered across the Caribbean, central Atlantic and in the northeast Indian Ocean. At sea it is usually seen close to its breeding colonies within 80 km of shore. Birds return to their colonies, or to other islands, to roost at night.

Gallery

File:Anous minutus by Gregg Yan 01.jpg, Nesting in Tubbataha Reef National Park, Philippines File:Anous minutus.JPG, Calling at colony. File:Anous minutus -nesting -Heron Island-8.jpg, Nesting on Heron Island, Australia File:Black noddy and chick.jpg, Black noddy with chick File:Black Noddy Head.jpg, Black noddy head File:Common Noddy head.JPG,

Common noddy The brown noddy or common noddy (''Anous stolidus'') is a seabird in the family Laridae. The largest of the noddies, it can be told from the closely related black noddy by its larger size and plumage, which is dark brown rather than black. The ...

head - note stouter beak, greyer cap File:Black Noddy Tern.JPG, Black noddy File:Black Noddy in flight at North Curl Curl, 2025.jpg, Black noddy in flight Anous minutus MHNT.ZOO.2010.11.131.19.jpg, ''Anous minutus'' - MHNT

References

* Guager, V.H. (1999) Black Noddy ''Anous minutus'', in ''The Birds of North America, No412 (Poole, A. and Gill, F. eds) The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, and The American Ornithologists’ Union, Washington, D.C.

External links

Midway atoll US Fish and Wildlife page on the black noddy

USDA information
{{Authority control Anous Birds of Ascension Island Birds of the Atlantic Ocean Birds of the Pacific Ocean Birds of the Gulf of Guinea Birds of Hawaii Birds of Puerto Rico Birds of the Dominican Republic Birds of Saint Helena Island black noddy black noddy Articles containing video clips Birds of Norfolk Island Fauna of the Pantropical realm