๐Ÿพ What Animal Lives Where

Where does the Sooty Tern live?

Onychoprion fuscatus has 78,939 records in 169 countries and territories, from 1838 to 2026. Most records come from United States.

Sooty Tern
Sooty Tern โ€” Photo: Marinha do Brasil ยท CC BY-SA 2.0 ยท Wikimedia Commons
AnimaliaChordataAvesCharadriiformesLaridaeOnychoprion

When it is recorded

JFMAMJJASOND

Peak month: November. Records cluster in the months an animal is present and being looked for, so a summer peak can reflect observer effort as much as the animal.

Records over time

18382026

Recording effort has risen steeply almost everywhere since the 1990s, so a rising line usually shows more observers rather than more animals.

Where it is recorded

PlaceRecordsShare
United States 27,522
Australia 23,872
Norfolk Island 2,429
United States Minor Outlying Islands 2,249
Taiwan 1,685
Mexico 1,086
Guadeloupe 1,043
Portugal 894
Seychelles 741
French Polynesia 712
Bahamas 570
Saint Helena 537
France 449
ZZ 424
Spain 408
Papua New Guinea 398
South Africa 385
Indonesia 382
French Southern Territories 365
India 358
New Caledonia 358
Mauritius 350
United Kingdom 332
Aruba 328
New Zealand 305
Kiribati 285
Sri Lanka 273
Trinidad & Tobago 270
Anguilla 253
Grenada 250
Brazil 246
Chile 243
Northern Mariana Islands 229
Tonga 223
Fiji 220
Japan 217
Kenya 214
Sweden 211
Cabo Verde 187
Panama 177

Showing the top 40 of 169 places.

Related animals

Others in the family Laridae.

Ring-billed Gull
Ring-billed Gull
11,223,960 records
Herring Gull
Herring Gull
7,289,858 records
Lesser Black-backed Gull
Lesser Black-backed Gull
6,915,295 records
American herring gull
American herring gull
6,899,110 records
Black-headed Gull
Black-headed Gull
6,838,408 records
Great Black-backed Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
5,036,634 records
Mew Gull
Mew Gull
3,398,916 records
Laughing Gull
Laughing Gull
3,221,312 records
Status from the records: resident
Recorded across many years and months โ€” an established presence. This is inferred from how many years and months the animal appears in, not from a range map โ€” treat it as evidence, not a formal assessment.