Species names in all available languages
| Language | Common name |
|---|---|
| Asturian | Gaviota groenlandesa |
| Basque | Kaio hegalzuria |
| Bulgarian | Малка белокрила чайка |
| Catalan | gavinot polar |
| Croatian | arktički galeb |
| Czech | racek polární |
| Danish | Hvidvinget Måge |
| Dutch | Kleine Burgemeester |
| English | Iceland Gull |
| English (United States) | Iceland Gull |
| Faroese | Lítil valmási |
| Finnish | grönlanninlokki |
| French | Goéland arctique |
| French (France) | Goéland arctique |
| Galician | Gaivota polar |
| German | Polarmöwe |
| Greek | Γλάρος της Ισλανδίας |
| Hebrew | שחף איסלנדי |
| Hungarian | Sarki sirály |
| Icelandic | Bjartmáfur |
| Italian | Gabbiano d'Islanda |
| Japanese | アイスランドカモメ |
| Korean | 작은흰갈매기 |
| Latvian | Mazā polārkaija |
| Lithuanian | Mažasis poliarinis kiras |
| Norwegian | grønlandsmåke |
| Polish | mewa polarna |
| Portuguese (Portugal) | Gaivota-branca |
| Romanian | Pescăruș cu aripi albe |
| Russian | Полярная чайка |
| Serbian | Islandski galeb |
| Slovak | čajka bielokrídla |
| Slovenian | Polarni galeb |
| Spanish | Gaviota Groenlandesa |
| Spanish (Mexico) | Gaviota de Groenlandia |
| Spanish (Spain) | Gaviota groenlandesa |
| Swedish | vitvingad trut |
| Turkish | Grönland Martısı |
| Ukrainian | Мартин гренландський |
Larus glaucoides Meyer, 1822
Definitions
- LARUS
- glaucoides
The Key to Scientific Names
Legend Overview
Iceland Gull Larus glaucoides Scientific name definitions
Version: 1.0 — Published March 4, 2020
Systematics
Systematics History
Editor's Note: This article requires further editing work to merge existing content into the appropriate Subspecies sections. Please bear with us while this update takes place.
Formerly listed as L. leucopterus. Closely related to L. argentatus, and in past sometimes treated as conspecific.
Geographic Variation
Size, eye color, mantle shade, and primary pattern vary largely clinally, with large size, dark eyes, dark mantle, and dark, heavily patterned primaries in the west and small size, pale eyes, pale mantle, and pale, unpatterned primaries in the east (Table 1, Appendix 1). The clinal nature of primary tip pattern (Table 1, Figure 3) is evident via a primary pattern score (PPS) of p6–p10, of 314 adult Larus glaucoides collected throughout the breeding range since the 1850s was assessed using criteria of Ingolfsson (1970), as modified by Snell (1991). Each bird was assigned to one of seven geographic regions (see Distribution; Figure 4, Appendix 1). PPS ranged from 5.0 for birds at the dark, heavily patterned extreme (essentially indistinguishable from L. argentatus, the Herring Gull) to 0.0 for birds the primaries unpatterned (as on L. hyperboreus, the Glaucous Gull). Not all variation is clinal: there is a sharp demarcation west of Bell Peninsula on eastern Southampton Island, with breeding colonies farther west comprised chiefly of dark-winged birds. Even so, many breeders in western colonies have the irides pale (15; see Appearance: Bare Parts), and some individuals have the primaries paler (77). There is no evidence of a sharp a step in the cline in eastern arctic Canada, from Baffin Island north to Ellesmere Island, although there is a geographic gap along the west coast of Greenland, where the species does not breed at all (Figure 1). Individual variation also may be considerable. For example, two chicks from eastern Greenland reared in captivity had markings on inner and outer webs of p10 when fully adult (Figure 10 in 17), even though most adult breeders in this region have the primaries pale and unpatterned, and in 2001 many birds in southwestern Greenland had the primaries patterned (Figure 7; L. Witting, personal communication).
Subspecies
Three subspecies, following Dickinson and Remsen (78) but with species limits of Chesser et al. (4; see Related Species). Thumbnail diagnoses herein are for the adult (i.e., fourth year or older), although no known character set will distinguish all individuals, as the types may represent points on a cline rather than exemplars of distinct taxa (79, RRS). For meticulous treatments on identification of the various age classes, see the extensive accounts and numerous color plates and photographs in Malling Olsen and Larsson (57) and Howell and Dunn (22). Taxonomic position of birds recognized as race kumlieni still problematic: has exceptionally been considered a separate species, as birds with grey wingtips occur alongside those with white wingtips in Nearctic. Others treat kumlieni as a glaucoides × thayeri hybrid. E–W cline apparent, from pale glaucoides to slightly darker kumlieni to darker thayeri.
- L. g. glaucoides Meyer, 1822. Includes L. leucopterus Faber, 1822; L. moltke Teilmann, 1823; L. islandicus Edmonston, 1823; L. arcticus Macgillivray, 1824; L. subleucopterus (Brehm, 1826); and L. minor (Bonaparte, 1856). Breeds in southwestern (south of 70° N latitude) and eastern Greenland; overwinters primarily in coastal areas of southwestern Greenland and adjacent open-water leads and polynyas, with ~10% wintering in Iceland [type locality = Iceland]. Mantle pale gray (Table 1); primary tips generally uniform white (i.e., lacking melanism), although some have the wingtips gray or patterned lightly (80, 81, 17); irides yellow; tarsi and culmen short (Appendix 1).
- L. g. kumlieni Brewster, 1883. Breeds in arctic Canada from southern and eastern Baffin Island to Coats Island, northern Hudson Bay, and Southampton Island [type locality = Cumberland Sound, Baffin Island]; winter range not known fully, but it includes open-water areas in northern Canada south, more-or-less scarcely, to the Great Lakes region and on the Atlantic coast to North Carolina, with vagrants reaching central Florida (42), Bermuda (82), and, rarely, the Pacific coast of the United States. Similar to L. g. glaucoides, but mantle darker and primary tips generally patterned with light to dark gray, with partial white apical spots (Table 1); averages larger overall (Appendix 1), and the irides vary heavily to lightly flecked with dark (but with no correlation between primary pattern and melanism of irides among breeders on eastern Baffin Island; 83).
- L. g. thayeri Brooks, 1915. Breeds in arctic Canada from eastern (Home Bay and Broughton Island) and northern Baffin Island north to Ellesmere Island and northwestern Greenland, and west and north from northern Southampton Island to Victoria and Banks Islands [type locality = Buchanan Bay, Ellesmere Island]; winters chiefly along the Pacific coast from southeastern Alaska south to northwestern Baja California, with scattered records inland from southern British Columbia south to southeastern California; reported as a vagrant to the inland West east to the Gulf coast and Atlantic coast (3, CBC data). Similar to L. g. kumlieni, but mantle dark, primary tips patterned with gray (including on Ellsmere Island; 84) to black, typically with complete white apical spots, especially west of Southampton Island (Table 1), and irides generally dark, although this character reportedly varies (11); averages large (Appendix 1).
Iceland Gull (Thayer's) Larus glaucoides thayeri Scientific name definitions
Distribution
Larus glaucoides thayeri Brooks, 1915
Definitions
- LARUS
- glaucoides
- thayeri
The Key to Scientific Names
Legend Overview
Iceland Gull (kumlieni) Larus glaucoides kumlieni Scientific name definitions
Distribution
Larus glaucoides kumlieni Brewster, 1883
Definitions
- LARUS
- glaucoides
- kumlieni
The Key to Scientific Names
Legend Overview
Iceland Gull (glaucoides) Larus glaucoides glaucoides Scientific name definitions
Distribution
Larus glaucoides glaucoides Meyer, 1822
Definitions
- LARUS
- glaucoides
The Key to Scientific Names
Legend Overview
Related Species
As constituted for many decades, the genus Larus included most of the world’s gull species; however, a recent molecular study (85) found that small, hooded or dark-headed gulls, as well as the kittiwakes and various monotypic species, are in lineages separate from that of the large, white-headed gulls. The large, white-headed species now constitute a restricted, monophyletic Larus (85, 86). All of these species are closely related (87), hybridize frequently where ranges meet (88), and likely are of recent origin, so their phylogenetic history is cloudy (89, 90). As a result, taxonomy of L. glaucoides has long been unstable and controversial (7, 91, 92, 93). For example, L. g. thayeri was formerly treated as conspecific with L. argentatus (e.g., 69, 94), later treated as a monotypic species, and most recently, after doubt was cast on purported evidence of assortative mating where ranges met, lumped with L. glaucoides (4). Even the nominate subspecies has been treated as conspecific with L. argentatus (e.g., 24).
Among genes screened thus far, there is little differentiation between L. glaucoides and other large, white-headed gulls in the North Atlantic. Mitochondrial DNA haplotypes are shared between L. glaucoides (sensu lato) and L. a. smithsonianus (95), and sequence analysis of the mitochrondrial control region and cytochrome b gene suggest unusually low levels of divergence among the large, white-headed gulls compared to other bird species (96). Moreover, allozyme variation minimal and genetic distances (i.e., Nei's D) between L. glaucoides and L. argentatus, L. hyperboreus, L. cachinnans (the Yellow-legged Gull), L. fuscus (the Lesser Black-backed Gull), or L. marinus (the Great Black-backed Gull) are so small are to be indistinguishable statistically from zero (87).
Despite hybridization being legion among large gulls, there is no evidence of successful, naturally occurring hybrids between L. glaucoides and either L. argentatus or L. hyperboreus, although there is a report of an unsuccessful L. argentatus × L. g. thayeri nest in Nunavut (97). A captive female L. glaucoides and male L. fuscus together produced two 3-egg clutches (98). As adults, the hybrids possessed pinkish legs of the mother, not yellowish legs of L. fuscus, and plumage patterns and colors intermediate between the two species but broadly similar to that of L. argentatus (98).
Hybridization
Hybrid Records and Media Contributed to eBird
-
Herring x Iceland Gull (hybrid) Larus argentatus x glaucoides
Fossil History
No information.
Rare but regular in small numbers at lakes, dams, and reservoirs in Great Plains and Interior West. During the winter, Iceland Gull occurs locally inland west of the distribution shown and also winters occasionally in western Europe. Most Iceland Gulls winter on coastal Greenland and in nearby Arctic polynyas (see text for details).
Key colonies and significant locations as discussed within the account are marked. The type locality of kumlieni is Cumberland Sound (Region 5), eastern Baffin Island. The type locality of thayeri is Buchanan Bay (Region 2), eastern Ellesmere Island.
Subspecies glaucoides breeds in southwestern and eastern Greenland; overwinters primarily in coastal areas of southwestern Greenland and adjacent open-water leads and polynyas. In adults, the mantle is pale gray and the primary tips are white, although some individuals have gray or lightly patterned wingtips. Irides are yellow, and the tarsi and culmen are short.
Breeds in arctic Canada from southern and eastern Baffin Island to Coats Island, northern Hudson Bay, and Southampton Island. Winter range not known fully, but it includes open-water areas in northern Canada south, more-or-less scarcely, to the Great Lakes region and on the Atlantic coast to North Carolina. In adults, the mantle is a medium gray (darker than glaucoides), with primary tips patterned with light to dark gray, with partial white apical spots. Irides vary heavily to lightly flecked with dark.
Back feathers and wing coverts brownish and extensively fringed white to form checkered appearance. Primaries often distinctly paler than wing coverts and back feathers. Underparts vary considerably from whitish to light drab brownish, some birds being quite dark brown, others quite white.
Breeds in arctic Canada from eastern and northern Baffin Island north to Ellesmere Island and northwestern Greenland, and west and north from northern Southampton Island to Victoria and Banks Islands. Winters chiefly along the Pacific coast from southeastern Alaska south to northwestern Baja California, with scattered records inland from southern British Columbia south to southeastern California. Adult thayeri is similar to L. g. kumlieni, but mantle dark, primary tips patterned with gray to black, typically with complete white apical spots.
