Rynchops
genus of birds
The skimmers, forming the genus Rynchops (from Ancient Greek ῥύγχος (rhúnkhos), meaning "beak", and ὄψ (óps), meaning "face"), are tern-like birds in the family Laridae. The genus comprises three species found in South Asia, Africa, and the Americas. They were formerly known as the scissorbills.
Description
The three species are the only birds with distinctive uneven bills, where the lower mandible is conspicuously longer than the upper. This remarkable adaptation allows them to fish in a unique way, flying low and fast over lakes, streams, and lagoons. Their lower mandible skims or slices over the water's surface, ready to snap shut any small fish unable to dart clear. The skimmers are now included within the gull and tern family Laridae, where they are positioned as a sister group of the terns and noddies. Skimmers also have an additional adaptation in being the only genus of birds known to have vertical slit-shaped pupils. The forehead, ends of the secondaries, tail feathers and under parts are white, the rest of the plumage is black and the basal half of the bill is crimson. Their bills fall within their field of binocular vision, which enables them to carefully position their bill and capture prey.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rynchops” 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.