Lesser Crested Tern

About the Lesser Crested Tern

The lesser crested tern (Thalasseus bengalensis) is a tern in the family Laridae. The genus name is from Ancient Greek Thalasseus, "fisherman" from thalassa, "sea". The specific bengalensis means "of Bengal", the type locality, historically referring to Bangladesh and part of Northeast India.

It breeds in subtropical coastal parts of the world mainly from the Red Sea across the Indian Ocean to the western Pacific, and Australia, with a significant population on the southern coast of the Mediterranean on two islands off the Libyan coast. It is an occasional vagrant to Europe, where it has been known to breed in pure and mixed (with Sandwich tern) pairs. The Australian birds are probably sedentary, but other populations are migratory, wintering south to South Africa.

This bird has three geographical subspecies, differing mainly in size and minor plumage details: T. b. emigratus (Neumann, 1934): breeding in the Mediterranean on islands off the coast of Libya, wintering West Africa. Pale grey above (only marginally darker than Sandwich tern); slightly larger.

T. b. bengalensis (Lesson, 1831): northern Indian Ocean including the Red Sea... Wikipedia →