Brown booby

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Species of bird

title: "Brown booby" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["boobies", "birds-of-the-atlantic-ocean", "birds-of-australia", "birds-of-brazil", "birds-of-cape-verde", "birds-of-the-caribbean", "birds-of-the-dominican-republic", "birds-of-the-indian-ocean", "birds-of-the-pacific-ocean", "birds-of-the-gulf-of-guinea", "birds-of-ascension-island", "birds-described-in-1783", "articles-containing-video-clips", "fauna-of-the-pantropical-realm", "taxa-named-by-pieter-boddaert"] description: "Species of bird" topic_path: "geography/australia" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_booby" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Species of bird ::

| fossil_range = Middle Quaternary to recent | image = Atobá-pardo.jpg | image_caption = Male S. l. leucogaster, Fernando de Noronha, tropical western Atlantic | image2 = Brown booby (Sula leucogaster leucogaster) Principe 3.jpg | image2_caption = Female S. l. leucogaster, Príncipe island, São Tomé and Príncipe | status = LC | status_system = IUCN3.1 | status_ref = | genus = Sula | species = leucogaster | authority = (Boddaert, 1783) | range_map = Sula brewsteri & Sula leucogaster, verspreidingskaart met subspp, a.png | range_map_caption = World range, with Brown booby subspecies in pink and purple:

The brown booby (Sula leucogaster) is a large seabird in the booby and gannet family Sulidae, of which it is one of the most common and widespread species. It has a pantropical range, which overlaps with that of other booby species. The gregarious brown booby commutes and forages at low height over inshore waters. Flocks plunge-dive to take small fish, especially when these are driven near the surface by their predators. They nest only on the ground, and roost on solid objects rather than the water surface.

Taxonomy

The brown booby was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux in 1781. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Buffon did not include a scientific name with his description but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Pelecanus leucogaster in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. The type locality is Cayenne in French Guiana. The current genus Sula was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760. The word Sula is Norwegian for a gannet; the specific leucogaster is from Ancient Greek leuko for "white" and gastēr for "belly".

There are two recognised subspecies:

  • S. l. leucogaster (Boddaert, 1783) – Caribbean and Atlantic Islands
  • S. l. plotus (Forster, JR, 1844) – Red Sea through the Indian Ocean to the west and central Pacific

In 2024, two other formerly accepted subspecies, S. l. brewsteri and S. l. etesiaca, were split out as a separate species Cocos booby Sula brewsteri by the American Ornithological Society, Clements Checklist, and the IOC World Bird List. Brown boobytern.JPG|male S. l. plotus, French Frigate Shoals Weißbauchtoelpel.jpg|female S. l. plotus, Green Island, Queensland 6A5A3225.jpg|male S. l. plotus, Queensland Brown booby (Sula leucogaster plotus) female in flight Michaelmas Cay.jpg|female S. l. plotus, Queensland

Description

The booby's head and upper body (back) is covered in dark brown to blackish plumage, with the remainder (belly) being a contrasting white. The bare-part colours vary geographically, but not seasonally. The species also displays sexual dimorphism of the bare part colours, the males having a blue orbital ring, as opposed to the yellow orbital ring of the female.

Female boobies reach about 80 cm in length; their wingspans measure up to 150 cm, and they can weigh up to 1300 g. Male boobies reach about 75 cm in length; their wingspans measure up to 140 cm, and they can weigh up to 1000 g.

Unlike other species of sulid, the juvenile plumage already resembles that of the adult. They are grey-brown with darkening on the head, upper surfaces of the wings and tail, while the lower breast and underpart plumages are heavily flecked brown on white.

Their beaks are quite sharp and contain jagged edges. They have fairly short wings resulting in a fast flap rate, but long, tapered tails. While these birds are typically silent, they occasionally make grunting or quacking sounds. Brown booby (Sula leucogaster plotus) pair Michaelmas Cay.jpg|Female and male S. l. plotus at their stick nest Sula leucogaster MHNT.ZOO.2010.11.45.7.jpg|eggs - MHNT Atobá com filho no ninho no Arquipélago de São Pedro e São Paulo.jpg|Male with chick in São Pedro and São Paulo Archipelago, Pernambuco, Brazil Brown booby (Sula leucogaster plotus) female and juvenile male on nest Michaelmas Cay.jpg|feeding S. l. plotus chick Brown booby (Sula leucogaster leucogaster) juvenile Principe.jpg|Juvenile S. l. leucogaster, São Tomé and Príncipe

Ecology

This species breeds on islands and coasts in the pantropical areas of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans. They frequent the breeding grounds of the islands in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. With the rise in pollution in the world, brown boobies have been using marine debris to make their nests, with 90.1% of these nest were consisted of plastic, while nests near shipwreck have a high percentage of the wreckage debris. This bird nests in large colonies, laying two chalky blue eggs on the ground in a mound of broken shells and vegetation, but usually raises just one chick, the second one to hatch being unable to compete for food with its older sibling, or even ejected from the nest by it. It winters at sea over a wider area.

Brown booby pairs may remain together over several seasons. They perform elaborate greeting rituals, and are also spectacular divers, plunging into the ocean at high speed. They eat mainly small fish (such as flying fish, mullets, halfbeaks, anchovies, goatfish, crowned squirrelfish, and Indian mackerels), squids (including the family Ommastrephidae), or shrimps which gather in groups near the surface and may catch leaping fish while skimming the surface. Along with plunge-diving, some fledglings and adults practice kleptoparasitism, where they steal prey from other seabirds. Brown boobies have even been observed stealing prey from the normally even more piratical great frigatebirds as they transfer food to their young. Although they are powerful and agile fliers, they are particularly clumsy in takeoffs and landings; they use strong winds and high perches to assist their takeoffs.

Vagrancy

As a result of global warming, the brown booby has increasingly been moving further north into seas formerly too cold for it. The first record in Great Britain was in 2019, with by 2024 a further 15 subsequent records, including six in 2023 and three in 2024; one even reached 59°21'N at North Ronaldsay in Orkney.

References

References

  1. "Sula leucogaster Boddaert 1783 (brown booby)".
  2. BirdLife International. (2018). "''Sula leucogaster''".
  3. (1985). "Seabirds: An Identification Guide". Houghton Mifflin.
  4. Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc de. (1781). "Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux". De L'Imprimerie Royale.
  5. (1765–1783). "Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle". De L'Imprimerie Royale.
  6. Boddaert, Pieter. (1783). "Table des planches enluminéez d'histoire naturelle de M. D'Aubenton: avec les denominations de M.M. de Buffon, Brisson, Edwards, Linnaeus et Latham, precedé d'une notice des principaux ouvrages zoologiques enluminés".
  7. (1979). "Check-list of Birds of the World". Museum of Comparative Zoology.
  8. Brisson, Mathurin Jacques. (1760). "Ornithologie, ou, Méthode contenant la division des oiseaux en ordres, sections, genres, especes & leurs variétés". Jean-Baptiste Bauche.
  9. Jobling, James A.. (2010). "The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names". Christopher Helm.
  10. (2025-02-20). "Storks, frigatebirds, boobies, darters, cormorants – IOC World Bird List".
  11. (2016). "Birds of the Horn of Africa: Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, and Socotra – Revised and Expanded Edition". [[Princeton University Press]].
  12. Ospina-Alvarez, A.. (2008). "Coloniality of brown booby (''Sula leucogaster'') in Gorgona National Natural Park, Eastern Tropical Pacific". Onitología Neotropical.
  13. (2018). "The use of anthropogenic marine debris as a nesting material by brown boobies (''Sula leucogaster'')". Marine Pollution Bulletin.
  14. Dorward, D.F.. (1962). "Comparative biology of the white booby and the brown booby ''Sula'' spp. at Ascension". Ibis.
  15. Hailey, A.. "Sula leucogaster (Brown Booby)".
  16. "Sula leucogaster (Brown booby)".
  17. (2025). "Report on rare birds in Great Britain". British Birds.

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boobiesbirds-of-the-atlantic-oceanbirds-of-australiabirds-of-brazilbirds-of-cape-verdebirds-of-the-caribbeanbirds-of-the-dominican-republicbirds-of-the-indian-oceanbirds-of-the-pacific-oceanbirds-of-the-gulf-of-guineabirds-of-ascension-islandbirds-described-in-1783articles-containing-video-clipsfauna-of-the-pantropical-realmtaxa-named-by-pieter-boddaert