Black skimmer
Rynchops niger
— Where the name comes from
Rynchops joins the Greek rhýnchos, “beak”, and ṓps, “face, appearance”: a bird that is above all beak. Niger in Latin means “black”, for the back and wings. The Italian name, “scissor-beak”, like the English skimmer and the French bec-en-ciseaux, describes the offset blades of the bill, whose lower half is longer than the upper.
— Facts
- Group
- Birds · Aves
- Order
- Shorebirds
- Habitat
- Sandy coasts, estuaries, lagoons, large rivers
- Range
- The Americas: from the coasts of the United States to Chile and Argentina
- Size
- 40–50 cm, wingspan 107–127 cm, 250–400 g
- Diet
- Small fish taken at the surface
- Lifespan
- Up to 20 years
— Characteristics
- 01
The lower mandible is several centimetres longer than the upper.
- 02
It is the only bird with a vertical pupil, a slit like a cat’s.
- 03
It often fishes at dusk and by night.
— What sets it apart
It fishes with its eyes closed, or nearly. It flies low over the water with its bill open and the lower blade submerged, cutting the surface like a plough; when it touches a fish, the upper half snaps down in a fraction of a second and the head bends under the body to hold the prey without losing height. It is a system that works by touch, which is why it lets the bird fish in the dark. The slit pupil, which can close almost completely, protects it instead from the glare of sun on water and sand.
