The northern gannet (Morus bassanus) is a seabird, the largest species of the gannet family, Sulidae. It is native to the coasts of the North Atlantic Ocean, breeding in Western Europe and Northeastern North America. It is the largest seabird in the northern Atlantic. The sexes are similar in appearance. The adult northern gannet has a mainly white streamlined body with a long neck, and long and slender wings. It is 87–100 cm (34+1⁄2–39+1⁄2 in) long with a 170–180 cm (67–71 in) wingspan. The head and nape have a buff tinge that is more prominent in breeding season, and the wings are edged with dark brown-black feathers. The long, pointed bill is blue-grey, contrasting with black, bare skin around the mouth and eyes. Juveniles are mostly grey-brown, becoming increasingly white in the five years it takes them to reach maturity. Nesting takes place in colonies on both sides of the North Atlantic, the largest of which are at the Bass Rock (75,000 pairs as of 2014), St. Kilda (60,000 pairs as of 2013) and Ailsa Craig (33,000 pairs as of 2014) in Scotland, in Ireland (Sceilg Bheag; little Skellig, 35,000 pairs in 2011), Grassholm in Wales, and Bonaventure Island (60,000 pairs in 2009) off the coast of Quebec. Its breeding range has extended northward and eastward, with colonies being established on Russia's Kola Peninsula in 1995 and Bear Island (the southernmost island of Svalbard), in 2011. Colonies are mostly located on offshore islands with cliffs, from which the birds can more easily launch into the air. The northern gannet undertakes seasonal migrations and catches fish (which are the mainstay of its diet) by making high-speed dives into the sea up to 60 mph. The northern gannet was previously hunted for food in certain parts of its range, and although that practice still continues in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland and the Faroe Islands, the bird faces few other natural or man-made threats. Since its population is growing, the International Union for Conservation of Nature considers it a least-concern species. Because it is both a conspicuous and a common bird, it is referred to in several ancient myths and legends.
Taxonomy The Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner gave the northern gannet the name Anser bassanus or scoticus in the 16th century, and noted that the Scots called it a solendguse. The former name was also used by the English naturalist Francis Willughby in the 17th century; the species was known to him from a colony in the Firth of Forth and from a stray bird that was found near Coleshill, Warwickshire. It was one of the many species originally described by the Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus in the landmark 1758 10th edition of his Systema Naturae, where it was given the binomial name Pelecanus bassanus. The French biologist Brisson placed it in the genus Sula in 1760, and his compatriot Louis Pierre Vieillot moved the species to his new genus Morus in 1816. Morus is derived from Ancient Greek moros, meaning 'foolish', and refers to the lack of fear shown by breeding gannets and boobies, which enables them to be easily killed. The specific name bassanus is from the Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth. The ornithologist Bryan Nelson in 1978 supported the species' inclusion in Sula as he felt the differences in anatomy, behaviour, ecology and morphology between gannets and boobies were not sufficient to warrant separate genera. Charles Lucien Bonaparte described the American populations as Sula americana in 1838, though the basis for distinguishing them from the European species was unclear and the name is now considered to be a synonym. "Northern gannet" has been designated as the official English common name for the species by the International Ornithologists' Union (IOC). It is also known as the North Atlantic gannet. Gannet is derived from Old English ganot, meaning "strong or masculine", which is ultimately from the same Old Germanic root as gander. Soland goose and similar old names for the northern gannet such as solan or solan goose derive from a hypothetical Scottish Gaelic sulan, itself borrowed from the Old Norse sula. The literal meaning is "cleft stick", referring to the appearance of the conspicuous crossed black wing tips on a perched northern gannet. Old regional names such as Norfolk's "herring gant" or Yorkshire's "mackerel gant" refer to typical fish prey. Lincolnshire's gaunt, although derived from the same Germanic root, usually applies to the great crested grebe, but the English writer Richard Hakluyt used the term in 1600 to refer to the gannet, "a great White foule". Young birds have been called "spotted booby" or "parliament goose", the former term referring to their plumage. The feeding habits of the gannet have led to its name being used as slang for a gluttonous person, a usage first recorded in 1929. The Sulidae, the gannets and boobies, appeared about 30 million years ago. Early Sulidae fossils resembled the boobies, although they were more aquatic, the gannets splitting off later, about 16 million years ago. The gannets evolved in the Northern Hemisphere, later colonising the southern oceans. The most ancient extant species may be the Abbott's booby, possibly the sole survivor of an otherwise extinct separate lineage. A 2011 genetic study of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA suggests that the ancestor of the gannets arose around 2.5 million years ago before splitting into northern and southern lineages. The latter then split into the Cape and Australasian gannets around 0.5 million years ago. The three gannets are generally considered to be separate species forming a superspecies, though they have also formerly been classified as subspecies of Sula bassanus.
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