Nazca booby

The Nazca booby (Sula granti) is a large seabird of the booby family, Sulidae, native to the eastern Pacific. Walter Rothschild named it in 1902 from birds of the Galapagos Islands, but it was long treated as a subspecies of the masked booby until genetic and behavioural studies showed it to be a separate species in 2002. It has the classic booby shape, with a long pointed orange-yellow bill, a long neck, slender wings and a pointed tail. Adults are bright white with black wingtips and tail and a dark mask on the face, and the female is larger and heavier than the male. It breeds on bare ground near cliffs on islands from Baja California to the Galapagos, Isla de la Plata in Ecuador and Malpelo in Colombia, and wanderers have reached Indonesia and northwestern Australia. It dives at speed from flight to catch small fish, mainly South American pilchard, and also takes flying fish, anchovies and squid. Typically the first chick to hatch drives its younger sibling from the nest. The IUCN rates the species Least Concern although numbers may be falling slowly.