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Systematics
Editor’s Note: Studies of mitochondrial DNA in the subfamily Larinae have suggested that the heretofore broadly defined genus Larus is paraphyletic. Reclassification of this genus now places Laughing Gull in the genus Leucophaeus. See the 49th Supplement to the AOU Check-list of North American Birds for details. Future revisions of this account will account for this change.
Geographic Variation And Subspecies
Two subspecies: nominate L. a. atricilla described by Linnaeus (1758) from the West Indies, and L. a. megalopterus, described by Parkes (1952) from North America. This subspecies was not recognized by the American Ornithologists’ Union (1957). Individuals of the nominate subspecies on average have shorter wing, tail, and tarsus measurements (Parkes 1952) and tend to have more black in primaries, usually with more extensive black tip on P6 (Cramp 1983).
Related Species
Probably most closely related to Franklin’s Gull (Sibley and Monroe 1990). On basis of pattern and displays, Moynihan (1959) included Laughing Gull among a subgroup of “primitive hooded gulls” including Franklin’s, White-eyed (Larus leucophthalmus), Sooty (L. hemprichi), Lava (L. fulginosus), and Mediterranean (L. melanocephalus) gulls and the much larger Great Black-headed Gull (L. ichthyaetus). He noted that Laughing Gull was most like Franklin’s Gull in its unspecialized displays. A principal component analysis of external and skeletal characters clustered Laughing Gull with Franklin’s, Silver (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae), Brown-hooded (L. maculipennis), and Slender-billed (C. genei) gulls and the kittiwakes (Rissa spp.; Schnell 1970).
Possible interbreeding of one pair of Grey-headed Gull x Laughing Gull in Senegal in 1983 (Erard et al. 1984).
Burger, Joanna. 1996. Laughing Gull (Leucophaeus atricilla), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/225
