King tern

King tern
King tern ( Thalasseus maximus )
Systematics
Class : Birds (aves) Order : Plover-like (Charadriiformes) Family : Terns (Sternidae) Genre : Thalasseus Type : King tern
Scientific name
Thalasseus maximus
( Boddaert , 1783)

The king tern ( Thalasseus maximus , Syn . : Sterna maxima ) is a species of bird from the family of the tern (Sternidae).

features

King tern in flight

With a body length of 42 to 49 centimeters, the king tern is almost as tall as the predatory tern ( Sterna caspia ), but when it breeds it has an orange-yellow beak and a more pronounced hood . In her quiet dress she has a white forehead. The tail is always forked deep. The upper covers of the arm wings are more contrasting than those of the Rüppell tern ( Thalasseus bengalensis ). The underside of the hand wings is lighter, the tail longer than that of the common tern.

distribution

Gelege, Museum Wiesbaden collection

The king tern breeds mainly in America , in the eastern Atlantic it only breeds on the coast of northern Mauritania . It moves northwards to Tangier , in the rest of Europe they only appear as very rare wanderers, probably of North American origin.

Subspecies

Two subspecies have been described, which differ mainly in their coloration and distribution area:

• Thalasseus maximus maximus ( Boddaert , 1783)
• Thalasseus maximus albididorsalis ( Hartert , 1921) The upper side and elytra are somewhat whitish than in the nominate form .

literature

King terns in the group

• Hermann Heinzel , Richard Fitter , John Parslow: Parey's bird book . Paul Parey Publishing House, Hamburg and Berlin 1988, ISBN 978-3-490-22018-9 .
• Lars Svensson, Peter J. Grant, Killian Mullarney, Dan Zetterström, Larry McQueen, Peter Barthel, Detlef Singer: The new cosmos bird guide: All species in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East . Franckh-Kosmos Verlag, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 978-3-440-07720-7 .
• Ernst Hartert: The birds of the Palearctic fauna . tape 5 . R. Friedländer & Sohn, Berlin 1921 ( online [accessed April 25, 2012]).

Web links

Commons : King Terns  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Thalasseus maximus inthe IUCN 2011 Red List of Threatened Species . Listed by: BirdLife International, 2009. Retrieved April 25, 2012.
• BirdLife International: Species Factsheet - Royal Tern ( Thalasseus maximus ) . Retrieved April 25, 2012.
• Videos, photos and sound recordings of Royal Tern (Thalasseus maximus) in the Internet Bird Collection
• King Tern ( Thalasseus maximus ) at Avibase; Retrieved April 25, 2012.
• Thalasseus maximus in the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS). Retrieved April 25, 2012.
• xeno-canto: Sound recordings - Royal Tern ( Thalasseus maximus )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ernst Hartert, p. 1699