Red-billed Tropicbird

Phaethon aethereus Linnaeus, 1758

Red-billed Tropicbird Phaethon aethereus is a tropicbird of tropical and subtropical oceans, breeding on islands off north-west Africa, in the southern Atlantic, around the Persian Gulf, in south Vietnam, from north-west Mexico to Ecuador, and in the Caribbean. It also ranges widely at sea outside the breeding season, including the Gulf Stream as far north as North Carolina, the open Atlantic, the north-west Indian Ocean to the west coast of India, and the eastern Pacific from central California to central Chile. It is a seabird with a red bill and long tail streamers, and adults usually show white plumage with black on the wings and back.

Order

Phaethontiformes

Family

Phaethontidae — Tropicbirds

Breeding range

Tropical Ocean: tropical and subtropical islands off nw Africa, n South Atlantic, Persian Gulf region, se Vietnam, nw Mexico to Ecuador, and Caribbean

Nonbreeding range

pelagic in tropical and subtropical oceans: in Gulf Stream n to North Carolina (w North Atlantic), far out to sea in Atlantic, nw Indian Ocean to w Indian coast, c California to c Chile (e Pacific)