Home/Species/ Parasitic Jaeger

Stercorarius parasiticus

(Linnaeus, 1758)

Parasitic Jaeger

G5Secure Found in 12 roadless areas NatureServe Explorer →

G5SecureGlobal Rank

Least concernIUCN

Identity

Unique IDELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.100286

Element CodeABNNM01020

Record TypeSPECIES

ClassificationSpecies

Classification StatusStandard

Name CategoryVertebrate Animal

IUCNLeast concern

Endemicoccurs (regularly, as a native taxon) in multiple nations

KingdomAnimalia

PhylumCraniata

ClassAves

OrderCharadriiformes

FamilyStercorariidae

GenusStercorarius

Other Common Names

Arctic Skua (EN) Labbe parasite (FR) Mindrião-Parasítico, Gaivota-Rapineira (PT) Salteador Parásito (ES)

Concept Reference

American Ornithologists' Union (AOU). 1998. Check-list of North American birds. Seventh edition. American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C. [as modified by subsequent supplements and corrections published in The Auk]. Also available online: http://www.aou.org/.

Taxonomic Comments

Also called arctic skua (AOU 1998).

Conservation Status

Rank MethodExpertise without calculation

Review Date2016-04-10

Change Date1996-11-26

Range Extent Comments

BREEDS: arctic and subarctic Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, northern Eurasia south near coast to Kamchatka and Sea of Okhotsk. NONBREEDING: Atlantic Ocean from Maine and Great Britain south to South America (Brazil, eastern Argentina) and southern Africa; Pacific from Baja California south to Chile, Australia, New Zealand.

Ecology & Habitat

Habitat

NON-BREEDING: mostly pelagic, less frequently along seacoasts, casually on large inland bodies of water (AOU 1983).

BREEDING: Nests on barren and dwarf-shrub coastal tundra; in shallow depression on the ground; generally on mound or slight rise in low wet tundra.

Reproduction

Breeding begins late May to early June (Harrison 1978); first eggs are laid in mid-June in north-central Alaska (Johnson and Herter 1989). Both sexes incubate usually 2 eggs for 23-26 days (sometimes up to 28 days). Young are semi-precocial and downy, can fly 28-35 days after hatching; fledging period averages 29-30 days. Most fledge in August in northern Alaska. Firsts breeds at age 3-5 years.

Terrestrial Habitats

Tundra

Palustrine Habitats

Riparian

Other Nations (2)

CanadaN5B,NUN

Province	Rank	Native
Northwest Territories	S4	Yes
Nova Scotia	SNA	Yes
Prince Edward Island	SNA	Yes
Ontario	S1B,S4M	Yes
Nunavut	S5B	Yes
Manitoba	S3B	Yes
New Brunswick	S4M	Yes
Labrador	SUB	Yes
British Columbia	S1B,SUM	Yes
Alberta	SNA	Yes
Saskatchewan	S4M	Yes
Quebec	S3B	Yes
Yukon Territory	S3B	Yes

United StatesN5B

Province	Rank	Native
Michigan	SNRN	Yes
Indiana	SNA	Yes
Alaska	S5B	Yes
North Carolina	SNA	Yes
New Jersey	S4N	Yes
Idaho	SNA	Yes
New Hampshire	SNA	Yes
Minnesota	SNRM	Yes
Rhode Island	SNA	Yes
Ohio	SNA	Yes
Georgia	SNRN	Yes
Vermont	SNA	Yes
District of Columbia	SHN	Yes
Oregon	SNA	Yes
Alabama	SNRN	Yes
Maryland	SNA	Yes
Massachusetts	S3N	Yes
Illinois	SNA	Yes
Delaware	SNA	Yes
Virginia	SNRN	Yes
Texas	SNA	Yes
New York	SNRN	Yes
Maine	S2N	Yes
Washington	S4N	Yes
Florida	SNRN	Yes
Connecticut	SNA	Yes
South Carolina	SU	Yes
California	SNA	Yes
Navajo Nation	SNR	Yes
Mississippi	SNA	Yes

Threat Assessments

Threat	Scope	Severity	Timing
11 - Climate change & severe weather	Pervasive (71-100%)	Unknown	Low (long-term)
11.1 - Habitat shifting & alteration	Pervasive (71-100%)	Unknown	Low (long-term)

Roadless Areas (12)

Alaska (10)

Area	Forest	Acres
Chichagof	Tongass National Forest	555,858
Chilkat-West Lynn Canal	Tongass National Forest	199,772
Cleveland	Tongass National Forest	189,447
College Fiord	Chugach National Forest	1,130,818
North Kupreanof	Tongass National Forest	114,660
Port Alexander	Tongass National Forest	120,681
Salmon Bay	Tongass National Forest	22,793
Twenty Mile	Chugach National Forest	198,775
Upper Situk	Tongass National Forest	16,789
Yakutat Forelands	Tongass National Forest	323,648

Nevada (1)

Area	Forest	Acres
Rose - Galena	Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest	3,711

Utah (1)

Area	Forest	Acres
Wellsville	Wasatch-Cache National Forest	1,717

References (25)

American Ornithologists' Union (AOU). 1983. Check-list of North American Birds, 6th edition. Allen Press, Inc., Lawrence, Kansas. 877 pp.
American Ornithologists' Union (AOU). 1998. Check-list of North American birds. Seventh edition. American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C. [as modified by subsequent supplements and corrections published in <i>The Auk</i>]. Also available online: http://www.aou.org/.
BirdLife International. 2004b. Threatened birds of the world 2004. CD ROM. BirdLife International, Cambridge, UK.
Braun, M. J., D. W. Finch, M. B. Robbins, and B. K. Schmidt. 2000. A field checklist of the birds of Guyana. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Evans, P. G. H. 1984a. The seabirds of Greenland: their status and conservation. Pages 49-84 in Croxall et al., eds. Status and conservation of the world's seabirds. ICBP Tech. Pub. No. 2.
Evans, P. G. H. 1984b. Status and conservation of seabirds in northwest Europe (excluding Norways and the USSR). Pages 293-321 in Croxall et al., eds. Status and conservation of the world's seabirds. ICBP Tech. Pub. No. 2.
Furness, R. W. 1987. The skuas. T & A D Poyser Ltd., Calton, England. 336 pp.
Furness, R. W. 1996. Family Stercoriidae (Skuas). Pages 556-571 in J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, and J. Sargatal (Eds.) Handbook of the birds of the world. Vol. 3. Lynx Editions, Barcelona, Spain.
Godfrey, W.E. 1966. The birds of Canada. National Museums of Canada. Ottawa. 428 pp.
Harrison, C. 1978. A Field Guide to the Nests, Eggs and Nestlings of North American Birds. Collins, Cleveland, Ohio.
Harrison, P. 1983. Seabirds: an identification guide. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, Massachusetts. 448 p. plus color plates.
Howell, S. N. G., and S. Webb. 1995. A guide to the birds of Mexico and northern Central America. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
Johnson, S. R. and D. R. Herter. 1989. The Birds of the Beaufort Sea. BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., Anchorage, Alaska. 372 pp.
Maher, W. J. 1974. Ecology of pomarine, parasitic, and long-tailed jaegers in northern Alaska. Cooper Ornithol. Soc. 148 pp.
Parker III, T. A., D. F. Stotz, and J. W. Fitzpatrick. 1996. Ecological and distributional databases for neotropical birds. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Peterson, R.T. 1980b. A field guide to the birds of eastern and central North America. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.
Peterson, R.T. 1990b. A field guide to western birds. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.
Raffaele, H., J. Wiley, O. Garrido, A. Keith, and J. Raffaele. 1998. A guide to the birds of the West Indies. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. 511 pp.
Ridgely, R. S. 2002. Distribution maps of South American birds. Unpublished.
Ridgely, R. S. and J. A. Gwynne, Jr. 1989. A Guide to the Birds of Panama. 2nd edition. Princeton University Press, Princeton, USA.
Sibley, D. A. 2000a. The Sibley guide to birds. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.
Stiles, F. G. and A. F. Skutch. 1989. A guide to the birds of Costa Rica. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, USA. 511 pp.
Terres, J. K. 1980. The Audubon Society encyclopedia of North American birds. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.
Wiley, R. H., and D. S. Lee. 1999. Parasitic Jaeger (S<i>tercorarius parasiticus</i>). No. 445 in A. Poole and F. Gill, eds. The birds of North America. The Birds of North America, Inc., Philadelphia, PA. 28 pp.
Zook, J. L. 2002. Distribution maps of the birds of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. Unpublished.

Stercorarius parasiticus

Habitat

Reproduction

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