Sula luecogaster

Boba Prieta,
Boba Parda,
Piquero Pardo

IDENTIFICATION: A large brown seabird with a white belly and underwing, and a yellowish bill. The immature plumage has duller gray undersides; this plumage is kept for the first two years. When seen flying at a distance, the pointed profile of the head is almost a mirror image of the profile of the tail. Length: 64-85 cm.; weight: 950-1,800 g.

VOICE: On the breeding grounds, females honk and males whistle.

HABITAT: Feeds at sea, often relatively close to shore.

HABITS: The Brown Booby feeds by flying over the ocean looking for schools of fish, and then diving like a dart, with its wings streamlined against its body. It especially favors flying fish---and sometimes squid close to the surface. It will feed alone or near pelicans. Unlike most birds, boobies do not have nostrils---an adaptation to the intense impact of diving from great heights. The booby uses its wings and feet to propel itself underwater. Occasionally young boobies perch on the railings or lines of a boat and allow sailors to approach them closely. The booby nests on the ground on rocky islands, where it incubates one or two white eggs for 45 days. The older booby chick often kills the younger chick, a behavior called siblicide, a form of brood reduction. The surviving chick starts to fly at about three months of age. Young boobies wander tropical seas and the Gulf Stream until returning to breed at three years of age or more.

STATUS AND CONSERVATION: Common just off the coast, especially in far eastern and far western Puerto Rico, closer to its nesting colonies. Many of these colonies are now designated as wildlife refuges, to protect them from human disturbance and predation by rats, cats and other predators. Formerly, nesting colonies on islands off Puerto Rico were raided by commercial egg collectors and disturbed by naval bombing exercises. Monkeys introduced to Desecheo Island eliminated most breeding seabirds there. Oil spills and entanglement with fishing nets are still threats. The West Indian breeding population is estimated at 5,500-7,800 pairs.

RANGE: The Brown Booby occurs throughout the world's tropical oceans. In Puerto Rico the most reliable areas to see this species from shore are at the Rinc≤n and Cabo Rojo lighthouses, close to nesting colonies on Monito Island in the Mona Passage. The largest colonies in Puerto Rico are found within the La Cordillera Nature Reserve (between Fajardo and Culebra), thus it is regularly seen from the ferries to Culebra and Vieques Islands.

TAXONOMY: PELECANIFORMES; SULIDAE.

References

Bent, A.C. 1922. Life histories of North American petrels and pelicans and their allies. Smithsonian Instit. U.S. National Museum Bull. 121. (Reprinted by Dover Press, 1964).

Burger, A. E. and A. D. Lawrence. 2000. Seabird monitoring techniques. Pp. 148-173 in Status and conservation of West Indian seabirds (E. A. Schreiber and D. S. Lee, eds.). Soc. Carib. Ornith., Special Pub. No. 1.

Dammann, A.E. and D.W. Nellis. 1992. A natural history atlas to the cays of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Pineapple Press, Sarasota, FL.

del Hoyo, J., A. Elliott, and J. Sargatal, eds. 1992. Handbook of Birds of the World, Vol. 1, Ostrich to ducks. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.

Erdman, D.S. 1967. Seabirds in relation to game fish schools off Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Carib. J. Sci. 7:78-85.

Harrison, P. 1983. Seabirds: an identification guide. Houghton Mifflin, Boston.

Harrison, P. 1987. A field guide to seabirds of the world. Stephen Greene Press, Lexington, MA.

Meier, A. J., R. E. Noble, and H. A. Raffaele. 1989. The birds of Desecheo Island, Puerto Rico, including a new record for Puerto Rican territory. Carib. J. Sci. 25:24-29.

Norton, R.L. 1988. The density and relative abundance of Pelecaniformes on the Eastern Puerto Rico Bank in December 1982. Carib. J. Sci. 24:28-31.

Raffaele, H.A. 1989. A guide to the birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Princeton.

Raffaele, H.A. 1989. Una guía a las aves de Puerto Rico y las Islas Vírgenes. Publishing Resources, Inc., Santurce, PR.

Raffaele, H.A., J.W. Wiley, O.H. Garrido, A.R. Keith, and J.I. Raffaele. 1998. Guide to the birds of the West Indies. Princeton.

Rolle, F.J. 1961. Institute of Caribbean studies field excursion to Isla Mona: ornithology. Carib. J Sci. 1:34-35.

Rolle, F. J., H. Heatwole, R. Lewins, and F. Torres. 1964. Faunal notes on Monito Island, Puerto Rico. Carib. J Sci. 4:321-322.

Saliva, J.E. 1994. Vieques y su fauna: Vieques wildlife manual. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Boquerón, PR.

Schreiber, E. A. 2000. Status of Red-footed, Brown and Masked Boobies in the West Indies. Pp. 46-57 in Status and conservation of West Indian seabirds (E. A. Schreiber and D. S. Lee, eds.). Soc. Carib. Ornith., Special Pub. No. 1.

Schreiber, E. A. 2000. Action plan for conservation of West Indian seabirds. Pp. 182-191 in Status and conservation of West Indian seabirds (E. A. Schreiber and D. S. Lee, eds.). Soc. Carib. Ornith., Special Pub. No. 1.

Schreiber, E. A. and D. S. Lee. 2000. West Indian seabirds: a disappearing natural resource. Pp. 1-10 in Status and conservation of West Indian seabirds (E. A. Schreiber and D. S. Lee, eds.). Soc. Carib. Ornith., Special Pub. No. 1.

Schreiber, E. A., and R. L. Norton. 2002. Brown Booby (Sula leucogaster). In The Birds of North America, No. 649 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Birds of North America, Inc., Philadelphia, PA.

Tershy, B. R., D. Breese, and D. A. Croll. 2000. Insurance eggs versus additional eggs: do Brown Boobies practice obligate siblicide? Auk 117(3):817-820.

Wiley, J. W. 2000. A bibliography of seabirds in the West Indies. Pp. 192-225 in Status and conservation of West Indian seabirds (E. A. Schreiber and D. S. Lee, eds.). Soc. Carib. Ornith., Special Pub. No. 1.

Brown Booby, Spanish text

Next related species in taxonomic order

Previous related species in taxonomic order

Back to Species Selection Page Menu

Return to first page of the CD-ROM