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The great skua was described from the Faroe Islands and Iceland by the Danish zoologist Morten Thrane Brünnich in 1764 under the binomial name Catharacta skua. [2] [3] It is now placed in the genus Stercorarius that was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760.
Many practice kleptoparasitism, which comprises up to 95% of the feeding methods of wintering skuas, by chasing gulls, terns and other seabirds to steal their catches, regardless of the size of the species attacked (up to three times heavier than the attacking skua). Larger species, such as the great skua, regularly kill and eat adult seabirds ...
The most likely explanation is extensive hybridization between the great and one species of lesser skuas, which resulted in a hybrid population that eventually evolved into a distinct species, the pomarine jaeger; or alternatively between the pomarine and a species of Southern Hemisphere skua, with the great skua being the hybrid offspring ...
They are slimmer, longer-winged and more tern-like than that species, but show the same wide range of plumage variation. However, they are usually colder toned than Arctic, with greyer shades, rather than brown. This is the smallest of the skua family at 38–58 cm (15–23 in), depending on season and age.
The south polar skua (Stercorarius maccormicki) is a large seabird in the skua family, Stercorariidae. An older name for the bird is MacCormick's skua, after explorer and naval surgeon Robert McCormick, who first collected the type specimen. This species and the other large skuas, such as the great skua, are sometimes placed in a separate genus ...
The parasitic jaeger (North America) or Arctic skua (Europe) (Stercorarius parasiticus), is a seabird in the skua family Stercorariidae. It is a migratory species that breeds in Northern Scandinavia , Scotland , Iceland , Greenland , Northern Canada , Alaska , and Siberia and winters across the southern hemisphere.
Brown skua eyeing a king penguin carcass. This is the heaviest species of skua and rivals the largest gulls, the great black-backed gull and glaucous gull, as the heaviest species in the shorebird order although not as large in length or wingspan. [2]
This is a list of the bird species recorded in the Azores. The avifauna of the Azores include a total of 430 species, of which one is endemic , and 7 have been introduced by humans. This list's taxonomic treatment (designation and sequence of orders, families and species) and nomenclature (common and scientific names) follow the conventions of ...