West African crested tern

The West African crested tern (Thalasseus albididorsalis)[1] is a bird species in the family Laridae.

West African crested tern
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Charadriiformes
Family: Laridae
Genus: Thalasseus
Species:
T. albididorsalis
Binomial name
Thalasseus albididorsalis
(Hartert, 1921)

Distribution

It breeds in subtropical coastal parts of the world on the coasts of Mauritania to Guinea.

Description

Like all Thalasseus terns, the West African crested tern feeds by plunge-diving for fish, usually from saline environments. It usually dives directly, and not from the "stepped-hover" favoured by Arctic tern. The offering of fish by the male to the female is part of the courtship display.

It was suspected by wildlife conservationists in The Gambia that the West African birds were a separate species and analysis of DNA by scientists at the University of Aberdeen and the University of Montpellier have confirmed that the West African albididorsalis is a separate species. Feathers and other remains were collected from Mauritania and from islands off Tanji Bird Reserve, The Gambia and the DNA sequences shows the West African royal tern is closer to the lesser crested tern (Thalasseus bengalensis) than royal terns on the other side of the Atlantic.[2]

gollark: They don't seem to have many WD disks in that.
gollark: Hmm. Perhaps seagate somewhat bad then.
gollark: ```ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 2 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 179 171 021 Pre-fail Always - 2033 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 168316 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 079 079 000 Old_age Always - 15354 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 2564192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 320193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 088 088 000 Old_age Always - 336830194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 126 080 000 Old_age Always - 21196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 2200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0240 Head_Flying_Hours 0x0032 088 088 000 Old_age Always - 8931```Wow, this disk is in a great state.
gollark: I don't see why I would want dead ones.
gollark: Certainly not to the extent that you'd expect piles of dead ones.

References
  1. 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 Archived 2006-07-20 at the Wayback Machine. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 35: 459–469.
  2. Collinson, J.M.; Dufour, P.; Hamza, A.A.; Lawrie, Y.; Elliott, M.; Barlow, C.; Crochet, P.-A. (2017). "When morphology is not reflected by molecular phylogeny: the case of three 'orange-billed terns' Thalasseus maximus, Thalasseus bergii and Thalasseus bengalensis (Charadriiformes: Laridae)". Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. 121 (2): 439–445. doi:10.1093/biolinnean/blw049.
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