South Polar Skua / Stercorarius maccormicki
WBN 
South Polar Skua
SCI Name:
Protonym: Stercorarius maccormicki Bull.Br.Orn.Club 3 p.12
Taxonomy: Charadriiformes / Stercorariidae / Stercorarius
Taxonomy Code: sopsku1
Type Locality: Possession Island, Victoria Land, lat. 71° 14'' S., long. 171° 15'' W.
Author: Saunders, H
Publish Year: 1893
IUCN Status: Least Concern
DEFINITIONS
STERCORARIUS
(Stercorariidae; Ϯ Arctic Skua S. parasiticus) L. stercorarius of dung < stercus, stercoris dung; skuas pursue other seabirds until they disgorge their food, the disgorged food once thought to be excrement, hence a former name 'Dung-hunter'; "Stercorarius. Genus 101. ... **1. LE STERCORAIRE. ... STERCORARIUS" (Brisson 1760): based on "Arctick Bird" of Edwards 1750; "Stercorarius Brisson, Orn., 1760, 1, p.l 56; 6, p. 149. Type, by tautonymy, Stercorarius Brisson = Larus parasiticus Linné." (Peters 1934, II, 311).
Var. Stercoraria, Stercararius, Stercoreus.
Synon. Atalolestris, Cataracta, Coprotheres, Labbus, Lestris, Oceanus, Praedatrix.
stercorarius
L. stercorarius of dung < stercus, stercoris dung (syn. Neophron percnopterus).
maccormicki
Robert McCormick (1800-1890) Royal Navy surgeon, polar explorer, naturalist (Catharacta (ex “Lestris...new species” of McCormick 1884)).
UPPERCASE: current genus
Uppercase first letter: generic synonym
● and ● See: generic homonyms
lowercase: species and subspecies
●: early names, variants, mispellings
‡: extinct
†: type species
Gr.: ancient Greek
L.: Latin
<: derived from
syn: synonym of
/: separates historical and modern geographic names
ex: based on
TL: type locality
OD: original diagnosis (genus) or original description (species)
