AIAI reconstruction created with Nano Banana 2 · 1K, grounded in the profile’s documented taxonomy, habitat, natural-history sources, and an open-license visual reference when available. It is an interpretive image, not documentary evidence. Image policy →
Sooty Tern
Charrán Oscuro
Onychoprion fuscatus
The sooty tern (Onychoprion fuscatus) is a tern in the family Laridae. It is a seabird of the tropical oceans and can fly for years at a time, skimming the sea surface for food, and returning to land only to breed, on islands throughout the equatorial zone.
Sound archive
Hear its voice
Explore real songs and calls. The spectrogram turns each sound into a visual trace of time and frequency.
Play: alarm call by Craig Robertson
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Sound recorded by Craig Robertson · XC766526 · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Visualization by Stichting Xeno-canto voor Natuurgeluiden.
Every recording retains the creator, catalogue number, and license published by Xeno-canto. Metadata via GBIF ↗
Island profile
About the Sooty Tern
The sooty tern (Onychoprion fuscatus) is a tern in the family Laridae. It is a seabird of the tropical oceans and can fly for years at a time, skimming the sea surface for food, and returning to land only to breed, on islands throughout the equatorial zone.
Conservation
Least Concern
IUCN LC
- Global IUCN
- LC
- Puerto Rico DNER
- No current listing in source crosswalk
- Federal ESA
- No current listing in source crosswalk
- Critical habitat
- Not identified in source crosswalk
Natural history
How it lives
- Habitat
- open-ocean
- Elevation
- 0–50 m
- Nest
- No nest; Scrape · Ground
- Clutch
- 1–1 eggs
- Social behavior
- Colonial
Keep exploring
This bird belongs to 4 paths through the atlas.
Related in the atlas
Where to fly next
Connected by taxonomy, habitat, occurrence, and conservation.
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Evidence trail
Sources, media & further reading
Research note: Wikipedia uses Onychoprion fuscata; normalized to current taxonomy Onychoprion fuscatus.