American Samoa (B) (NB), Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Australia (B), Barbados, Belize, Brazil, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea (B), Fiji, French Polynesia, Guadeloupe, Guam (NB), Indonesia, Japan (B), Kiribati, Marshall Islands (B), Martinique, Mexico, Micronesia [Federated States of] (B), Montserrat, Nauru, Netherlands Antilles, New Caledonia, New Zealand (B), Nigeria, Norfolk Island, Northern Mariana Islands (B), Palau (B), Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Sâo Tomé e Principe (B), Solomon Islands, St Helena (B), St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and The Grenadines, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, United States Minor Outlying Islands (B), Venezuela, Wallis and Futuna Islands (B).
Vagrant to Colombia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Malaysia, Panama, Puerto Rico, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, USA (B), Vanuatu, Virgin Islands (U.S.).
Widespread in the tropical Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and north-eastern Australia from Torres Strait and the coral Sea to the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef.
Nest
An almost flat structure, composed of leaves of the tree in which it is built, laid one upon another, with a very slight addition of seaweed, cemented together with guano, giving the interior a white-washed appearance, up to 15 meters above the ground. In colonies.
Eggs (Guide)
1; course, matt, cream, thinly blotched with rufous and purple-grey, particularly at the larger end; rounded-oval; about 46 x 33 mm. Incubation: about 35 days; by both sexes.
Young
Semi-precocial.
Subspecies
Forms superspecies with Lesser Noddy (Anous tenuirostris) and sometimes considered conspecific.
Subspecies breeding on Ashmore Reef, eastern Indian Ocean is not known.
The following 7 subspecies are recognised:
worcesteri (McGregor, 1911) - Cavilli I and Tubbataha Reef (Sulu Sea).
minutus Boie, 1844 - North-eastern Australia and New Guinea to Tuamotu Is.
marcusi (Bryan, 1903) - Marcus I and Wake I through Micronesia to Caroline Is.
melanogenys Gray, GR, 1846 - Hawaiian Is.
diamesus (Heller & Snodgrass, 1901) - East-central Pacific at Cocos I and Clipperton Is.
americanus (Mathews, 1912) - Central America and Venezuelan islands; recently found and possibly nesting off Yucatán, Mexico, and in Lesser Antilles.
atlanticus (Mathews, 1912) - Atlantic islands (St Paul, Fernando de Noronha, Ascension, St Helena, formerly Inaccessible) northern and east to Gulf of Guinea.
Similar Species
Common Noddy (Anous stolidus)
Larger. Is browner. Cap is greyer. Bill is thicker.
The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia Pizzey, G., and Knight, E., 1997, Angus & Robertson, Sydney ISBN 0 207 19691 5
Field Guide to Australian Birds Morecombe, M., 2000, Steve Parish Publishing Pty Ltd. ISBN 1 876282 10 X
Field Guide to the Birds of Australia Simpson, K., and Day, N., 1999, 6th Edition, Viking ISBN 0 670 87918 5
Reader's Digest Complete Book of Australian Birds 1988, 2nd Edition, Reader's Digest ISBN 0 949819 99 9
What Bird is That? 1984, Revised Edition, Angus & Robertson, Sydney ISBN 0 207 14846 5
Handbook of Australian, New Zealand & Antarctic Birds 1990 - , Oxford University Press, Melbourne ISBN 0 19 553244 9
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