Relict gull
species of bird
The relict gull or Central Asian gull (Ichthyaetus relictus) is a medium-sized gull. It was believed to be an eastern race of the Mediterranean gull until 1971 and was traditionally placed in the genus Larus.
Description
The gull is 44 to 45 cm long with a stocky, thick body. Non-breeding adults feature uniformly dark-smudged ear-coverts and hind crown, white-tipped wings, prominent, isolated black subterminal markings on outer primaries, and no white leading edge to outer wing. Breeding birds have black hoods (including napes) with grey-brown foreheads, and broad, white, half-moon colouring behind, below, and above their eyes. Their legs are orange and their bills scarlet. The name comes from its status as a relict species.
Distribution and habitat
The gull breeds in several locations in Mongolia (e.g., Galuut Lake, Khukh Lake, and Chukh Lake), two in Kazakhstan, one in Russia, and one in China (Lake Hongjiannao). Small numbers appear to migrate to South Korea during the nonbreeding period. There is additional evidence that larger numbers may migrate to eastern China as well, but this is not verified.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 4, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1139929. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1971.
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This entry incorporates text from “Relict gull” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.