A Swallow-tailed Gull chick (Creagrus furcatus, the only species in the genus Creagrus) waits for a parent to bring food to a bare ground nest on North Seymour Island in the Galápagos archipelago, a province of Ecuador, located 972 km west of the continent of South America. The Swallow-tailed Gull is an equatorial seabird in the gull family Laridae. Its scientific name is derived from the Latin Larus, "gull" and furca "two-tined fork". It spends most of its life flying and hunting over the open ocean. The main breeding location is the cliffs of the larger Galápagos Islands, with lower numbers on most of the smaller islands. It is more common on the eastern islands where the water is warmer. It is the only fully nocturnal gull and seabird in the world, preying on squid and small fish which rise to the surface at night to feed on plankton.
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