Seagull is a nickname—many gulls never need the sea
Larinae range from a 120-gram little gull to a 1.75-kilogram great black-backed giant, yet the casual "seagull" misleads. Grey gulls nest in dry deserts, inland cities host colonies from Minnesota to Alice Springs, and salt glands let them drink seawater while herring gulls may live nearly fifty years.
Closest kin are terns and skimmers within Laridae; older English called them mews, an onomatopoeic name shared across Germanic languages. Most are grey-white with webbed feet and harsh calls. Large white-headed species take up to four years to finish adult plumage; small gulls often two. They nest in noisy colonies on two or three speckled eggs; chicks hatch mobile in mottled down. Intelligence shows in mobbing, kleptoparasitism, and herring-gull tool use—bread bait for goldfish—while some even peck flesh from surfacing whales.
Generalists equally at home swimming, flying, and walking, they hover, snatch, plunge, and foot-paddle for worms or marine invertebrates. Older birds learn to drop mussels on hard surfaces more successfully than juveniles, a skill that may help explain delayed maturity. They breed on every continent's margins, migrate from Sabine's Arctic-to-southern routes to short coastal hops, and track fishery discards—Audouin's and lesser black-backed gulls especially. Yellow-legged gulls on Portugal's Berlenga Island surged from 2,600 in 1974 to 44,698 by 1994 as refuse and crabs mixed in the diet.
Until the twenty-first century most sat in polyphyletic Larus; several genera have been restored. Jaws unhinge for large prey. From crustaceans to rodents and human scraps, no species is a single-prey specialist, and none relies on only one foraging method. Overfishing and landfill closures force dietary pivots, yet adults keep chick condition steady—an adaptability that makes gulls coastal icons and stubborn city fixtures from harbour walls to desert nesting grounds.
Source: Gull
