Skua

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Skua

Skuas are seabird

Seabird

Seabirds are birds that have adaptation to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behavior and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same environmental problems and feeding ecological niche have resulted in similar adaptations....
s in the family Stercorariidae. The three smaller skuas are called jaegers in North America.

The name skua comes from Faroese

Faroese language

Faroese , often also spelled Faeroese , is a West Nordic or West Scandinavian language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 12,000 Faroese people in Denmark....
skúgvur (Stercorarius skua), and the island of Skúvoy

Skúvoy

Sk?voy is an island in central Faroe Islands, located to the south of Sandoy. It is named after the large number of skua present on the island ....
is renowned for its colony of that bird. Jaeger is derived from the German

German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
word Jäger, meaning hunter.

Skuas nest on the ground in temperate and Arctic regions and are long-distance migrants

Bird migration

Bird migration refers to the regular seasonal journeys undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather....
.

Biology and habits
Outside the breeding season, skuas take fish, offal and carrion.

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Encyclopedia

Skuas are seabird

Seabird

Faroese language

Skúvoy

German language

Bird migration

Bird migration refers to the regular seasonal journeys undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather....
.

Biology and habits

Outside the breeding season, skuas take fish, offal and carrion. Many are partial kleptoparasites

Kleptoparasitism

Kleptoparasitism or cleptoparasitism is a form of feeding where one animal takes prey from another that has caught, killed, or otherwise prepared the prey, including stored food ....
, chasing gulls, terns and other seabirds to steal their catches; the larger species, such as Great Skua also regularly kill and eat adult birds, such as puffins and gulls, and have been recorded as killing birds of the size of a Grey Heron

Grey Heron

The Grey Heron , is a wading bird of the heron family Ardeidae, native throughout temperate Europe and Asia and also parts of Africa. It is resident in the milder south and west, but many birds bird migration in winter from the ice in colder regions....
. On the breeding grounds they commonly eat lemming

Lemming

Lemmings are small rodents, usually found in or near the Arctic, in tundra biomes. They are Subnivean and together with the voles and muskrats, they make up the Family Arvicolinae , which forms part of the largest mammal radiation by far, the superfamily Muroidea, which also includes the rats, mouse, hamsters, and gerbils....
s, and the eggs and young of other birds.

They are in general medium to large bird

Bird

Birds are wing, Bipedalismal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay egg . There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates....
s, typically with grey or brown plumage, often with white markings on the wings. They have longish bills with a hooked tip, and webbed feet with sharp claws. They look like large dark gulls, but have a fleshy cere above the upper mandible. They are strong, acrobatic fliers.

Taxonomy

Skuas are related to gull

Gull

Gulls are Aves in the family Laridae. They are most closely related to the terns and only distantly related to auks, and skimmers, and more distantly to the waders....
s, wader

Wader

Waders, called shorebirds in North America , are members of the order Charadriiformes, excluding the more marine web-footed seabird groups....
s, auk

Auk

Auks are birds of the family Alcidae in the order Charadriiformes. They are superficially similar to penguins due to their black-and-white colours, their upright posture and some of their habits....
s and skimmer

Skimmer

The Skimmers, Rhynchopidae, are a small family of tern-like birds in the order Charadriiformes, which also includes the waders, gulls and auks....
s. In the three smaller species (all Holarctic), breeding adults have the two central tail feathers obviously elongated and at least some adults have white on the underparts and pale yellow on the neck, characteristics that the larger species (all native to the Southern Hemisphere except for the Great Skua) do not share. Therefore the skuas are often split into two genera with only the smaller species retained in Stercorarius, and the large species placed in Catharacta. However, there is no genetic basis for this separation. The Pomarine and Great Skuas' mitochondrial DNA

Mitochondrial DNA

Mitochondrial DNA is the DNA located in organelles called mitochondrion. Most other DNA present in eukaryotic organisms is found in the cell nucleus....
(which is inherited from the mother only) is in fact more closely related to each other than it is to either Arctic or Long-tailed Skuas, or to the Southern Hemisphere species. Thus, hybridization must have played a considerable role in the evolution of the diversity of Northern Hemisphere skuas.

Species

present]]

Long-tailed Skua
Long-tailed Skua

The Long-tailed Skua, Stercorarius longicaudus, known as the Long-tailed Jaeger in North America, is a seabird in the skua family Stercorariidae....
or Long-tailed Jaeger, Stercorarius longicaudus
Arctic Skua
Arctic Skua

The Arctic Skua, Stercorarius parasiticus, known as the Parasitic Jaeger in North America, and referred to as the Parasitic Skua in some publications, is a seabird in the skua family Stercorariidae....
or Parasitic Jaeger, Stercorarius parasiticus
Pomarine Skua
Pomarine Skua

The Pomarine Skua, Stercorarius pomarinus, known as Pomarine Jaeger in North America, is a seabird in the skua family Stercorariidae....
or Pomarine Jaeger, Stercorarius pomarinus
Chilean Skua
Chilean Skua

The Chilean Skua is a large predatory seabird. While nowhere near the size of birds such as the Wandering Albatross, the Chile Skua makes up for it in sheer aggression towards other birds....
, Stercorarius chilensis
South Polar Skua
South Polar Skua

The South Polar Skua, Stercorarius maccormicki, is a large seabird in the skua family Stercorariidae. An older name for this bird is MacCormick?s Skua....
, Stercorarius maccormicki
Brown Skua
Brown Skua

The Brown Skua is often referred to as Antarctic Skua ; the taxonomy of Skuas is still a matter of dispute. Other names include Southern Great Skua, Southern Skua or Subantarctic Skua....
, Stercorarius antarctica
Great Skua
Great Skua

The Great Skua, Stercorarius skua, is a large seabird in the skua family Stercorariidae. In Britain, it is sometimes known by the name Bonxie, a Shetland name of unknown origin....
Stercorarius skua

External links

on the Internet Bird Collection