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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Frigatebird

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Frigatebird

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This is the archived discussion of the TFAR nomination for the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page.

The result was: scheduled for Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 22, 2016 by Brianboulton (talk) 22:25, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Male Frigate bird.jpg

Frigatebirds are a family—Fregatidae—of seabirds found across all tropical and subtropical oceans. The five living species are classified in a single genus, Fregata. All have predominantly black plumage, long, deeply forked tails and long hooked bills. Their wings are long and pointed and can span up to 2.3 metres (7.5 ft), the largest wing area to body weight ratio of any bird. Females have white bellies and males have a distinctive red gular pouch, which they inflate during the breeding season. Able to soar for days on wind currents, frigatebirds spend most of the day in flight hunting for food. Their main prey are fish and squid, caught when chased to the water surface by large predators such as tuna. Frigatebirds are kleptoparasites as they occasionally rob other seabirds for food, and are known to snatch seabird chicks from the nest. Three of the five species are widespread, while two are endangered and restrict their breeding habitat to one small island each. The oldest fossils date to the early Eocene, around 50 million years ago. Classified in the genus Limnofregata, the three species had shorter less-hooked bills and longer legs, and lived in a freshwater environment. (Full article...)