''Sterna'' is a

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 ...

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

mtDNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA and mDNA) is the DNA located in the mitochondria organelles in a eukaryotic cell that converts chemical energy from food into adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA is a small portion of the DNA contained in ...

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 cal ...

comparisons have determined that this arrangement was

paraphyletic Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...

. It is now restricted to the typical medium-sized white terns with deeply forked tails, which occur near-globally, mostly in coastal regions but several also using freshwater habitats inland.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 ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

in the tenth edition of his ''

Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the Orthographic ligature, ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Sweden, Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the syste ...

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

Old English Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

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

Frisians The Frisians () are an ethnic group indigenous to the German Bight, coastal regions of the Netherlands, north-western Germany and southern Denmark. They inhabit an area known as Frisia and are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland an ...

Species

The genus contains 13 species. The following genera were formerly often included in ''Sterna'': *'' Onychoprion'' (larger terns with white foreheads and dark backs) *'' Sternula'' (small terns mostly with white foreheads) *'' Thalasseus'' (large terns with crests)

References

External links

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