West Coast Pacific Gull
S4, Adult, Taking Off
West Coast Pacific Gull
S1, Adult, posterior
Animals
Plants
Info
| West Coast Pacific Gull S4, Adult, Taking Off | | West Coast Pacific Gull S1, Adult, posterior | | ||
Animals Plants Info |
 | Class: | Animals (Animalia) - Chordates (Chordata) - Birds (Aves) | ||||||||||||||
| Order: | Coastal Birds (Charadriiformes) | |||||||||||||||
| Family: | Gull (Laridae) iNaturalist Observation | |||||||||||||||
| Species: | West Coast Pacific Gull (Larus pacificus ssp georgii)| This Photo: | 🔍S4, Adult, anterior, Feet🔎 | Other names: | Seagull or Western Pacific Gull | Thank you Sam Gordon, Tom Hunt (Moth_Nut) & George Seagull for confirming the id of this species for us General Species Information: Found in the Murray Mallee SA, Coastal Areas and possibly elsewhere You can see here this is a marked difference in the colouration between adults & juveniles; with the juveniles being a sooty grey colour, while the adults are stark white and grey/black. There is a very similar introduced/cosmopolitan species, the Kelp gull (Larus dominicanus). Still quite rare in SA fortunately, and generally only found in the very south east & Kangaroo Island. The most obvious difference being that this one, the native species, has red on both the upper & lower beak; along with a black line on the upper beak. There has been some speculation that L. p. ssp pacificus has white iris's & L. p. ssp georgii has dark iris's. In response to this Sam said "Pacific Gull subspecies are something that still need taxonomic work, but the birds across most of SA (approximately between the Coorong west to the Nullarbor) are an odd intermediate between nominate eastern, and western georgii, and are currently relegated to georgii based on the shape of their loral point. Iris colour is not a described feature differentiating subspecies, and varies to some extent. I wouldn't be surprised if the SA birds are found to be a hybrid population of the two taxa or similar."
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