Sterna is a genus of terns in the bird family Laridae. The genus used to encompass most "white" terns indiscriminately, but mtDNA sequence comparisons have recently determined that this arrangement is paraphyletic. It is now restricted to the typical medium-sized white terns occurring near-globally in coastal regions.[1]
The genus Sterna was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae.[2] The type species is the common tern (Sterna hirundo).[3] Sterna is derived from Old English "stearn" which appears in the poem The Seafarer; a similar word was used to refer to terns by the Frisians.
The genus contains 13 species.[4]
| Image | Common Name | Scientific name | Distribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sterna forsteri | North America. | ||
| Snowy-crowned tern or Trudeau's tern | Sterna trudeaui | Argentina, south-east Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay | |
| Sterna hirundo | Europe, North Africa, Asia east to western Siberia and Kazakhstan, and North America. | ||
| Sterna dougallii | Atlantic coasts of Europe and North America, and winters south to the Caribbean and west Africa. | ||
| Sterna striata | New Zealand and Australia | ||
| Sterna sumatrana | tropical and subtropical areas of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. | ||
| Sterna hirundinacea | southern South America, including the Falkland Islands, ranging north to Peru (Pacific coast) and Brazil (Atlantic coast). | ||
| Sterna vittata | Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, the Falkland Islands, the Heard Island, the McDonald Islands, Australia, and New Zealand. | ||
| Sterna virgata | Kerguelen Islands, the Prince Edward Islands (i.e. Prince Edward and Marion) and Crozet Islands. | ||
| Sterna paradisaea | the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of Europe, Asia, and North America (as far south as Brittany and Massachusetts). | ||
| Sterna aurantia | inland rivers from Iran east into the Indian Subcontinent and further to Myanmar to Thailand | ||
| Sterna acuticauda | Pakistan, Nepal, India and Bangladesh, with a separate range in Myanmar. | ||
| Sterna repressa | coasts on the Red Sea, around the Horn of Africa to Kenya, in the Persian Gulf and along the Iranian coast to Pakistan and western India. | ||
For the "brown-backed terns" see genus Onychoprion.