Gulls

Terns, Skimmers, Gulls Black Tern Common Tern Forster's Tern Royal Tern Sandwich Tern Lesser Black-backed Gull Heermann's Gull Herring Gull Laughing Gull Ring-billed Gull Thayer's Gull Black Skimmer Shorebirds Types of Birds

Conflict in the bird world often emerges as much among the humans that study the birds as among the birds that are studied.

Such is the case with the ubiquitous human beach companions known as Gulls and Terns. While some ornithologists place them, along with Skimmers, Noddies, Jaegars and Skuas, in a single family, Laridae, other ornithologists differentiate among the bird groups, providing each of them a separate family status.

In taxonomies that support differentiation, terns are placed in the Sternidae family and gulls are placed in the Laridae family.

Recent genetic research on terns has also prompted additional within family differentiation. For instance, within the past decade crested terns, species with spiky hair feathers such as the Royal and Sandwich Terns, have been placed into a separate genus, Thalasseus.

Future taxonomic changes will no doubt ensue as the use of genetic testing continues to spread through the field of ornithology.

Whether or not they constitute a single Laridae family, Terns, Skimmers and Gulls are closely related. As such, they are presented here in one group.

Worldwide, the gulls (Laridae) divide into almost a dozen genera with most species belonging to the Larus genus. With the exception of the Laughing Gull, all the gulls presented here belong to the Larus genus.

© 2009 Patricia A. Michaels