#phaethontiformes

(Sources - 1, 2, 3)

Our next order is Phaethontiformes, commonly known as “tropicbirds”. This is a small order, containing one living family, Phaethontidae, and three species within one genus: Phaethon.

Tropicbirds have predominantly white plumage with long, slender tail streamers which can be up to twice their body length. All four of their toes are connected with webbing. Their legs are small and weak, located far back on their body, making walking impossible, so they can only move on land by shuffling. Their bills are large, powerful and slightly downcurved. Tropicbirds frequently catch their prey by hovering and then plunge-diving, typically only into the surface-layer of the water. They eat mostly fish, especially flying fish (family Exocoetidae), and occasionally squid. Flying fish are usually caught in the air. They live on the open ocean, nesting on remote, rocky cliffs, or on offshore islands.

Tropicbirds are usually solitary or live in pairs in breeding colonies. Within breeding colonies, they engage in spectacular courtship displays. For several minutes, groups of 2–20 birds simultaneously and repeatedly fly around one another in large, vertical circles, while swinging their tail streamers from side to side. If the female likes the presentation of a male, she will join his flight display, and the pair will split off from the group to do a courtship display together. The pair will mate in the male’s prospective nest-site, usually a hole or crevice on the bare ground. The female will lay one white egg, which is spotted brown. Both parents incubate the egg, but mostly the female, while the male brings food to feed her. The chick will stay alone in the nest while both parents search for food, and they will feed the chick twice every three days until fledging, about 12–13 weeks after hatching. The parents will stop visiting the chick after it has fledged, and the chick will leave the nest on its own.

Tropicbirds are in the clade Eurypygimorphae, along with Eurypygiformes (“kagus” and “Sunbittern”). Tropicbirds were a very early branch of this clade, with well-preserved fossils known from the Early Paleocene. One waterbird, Novacaesareala hungerfordi, dates to the Late Cretaceous. If it is a tropicbird, that could put the origin of this order before the K-Pg extinction. Modern tropicbirds evolved in the Early Eocene.

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Propaganda under the cut:

A red-billed tropicbird (Phaethon aethereus) with its chick in Trinidad and Tobago

Red-tailed Tropicbird (Phaethon rubricauda)