- Attagen ariel Gould, in Gray’s Genera Birds (1845), 3, 669.
- Fregata ariel Grant, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1898), 26, 447; Blanford, Fauna Brit. Ind. Bds. (1898), 4, 338, fig. 77 (head); Sharpe, Hand-List (1899), 1, 237; Oates, Cat. Birds’ Eggs (1902), 2, 213; McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 40.
- Fregata minor (not Pelecanus minor Gmelin) Sharpe, Ibis (1888), 204; Grant, Ibis (1896), 128.
Con-pi-sao′, Bantayan.
Bantayan (McGregor); Cagayancillo (McGregor); Luzon (Whitehead); Mindanao (Bourns & Worcester); Negros (Bourns & Worcester); Palawan (Whitehead). Tropical and subtropical Indian and Pacific Oceans.
“Adult male.—General color black, inclining to sooty black on under parts; feathers of head, upper back, and scapulars elongate and pointed, the former with a dull oil-green gloss, the latter dark metallic-green in freshly molted specimens, but becoming bronze or purple with wear; a large white patch on each flank. Tail composed of 12 feathers. Iris black; naked skin round eye and gular pouch red; bill gray; feet black. Length, about 760; culmen from feathers on forehead, 58 to 89; wing, 487 to 533; tail, 279 to 338; tarsus, 19.
“Adult female.—Head like that of the male, but feathers of the back and scapulars less elongate and of a brownish black color with scarcely a trace of metallic gloss; breast, sides of belly, flanks, and a wide collar round the neck white; lesser and median wing-coverts pale brown, with whitish margins and deep brown shaft-stripes; plumage otherwise like that of the male. Iris red; bill gray; bare skin round the eye and on the throat red, but not so light as that of the male; feet red. Length, about 760; culmen from feathers on forehead, 81 to 91; wing, 510 to 528; tail, 287 to 343; tarsus, 18.
“Male and female immature.—Head and neck white, shading into brown on the chest, breast, sides of belly, lower neck, and upper parts; middle of belly and flanks white. It will thus be seen that the colors of the above parts are just the reverse of those of the adult female, the white parts being dark and vice versa; rest of the plumage much like that of the adult female. Iris black; bill and feet whitish with a shade of blue.” (Grant.)
“Not infrequently seen singly or in small flocks, but very difficult to kill.” (Bourns and Worcester MS.)
Family PELECANIDÆ.
Body large and heavy; upper mandible depressed, narrower and higher at base, broader and flattened toward the end, composed of a median bar, continuing the whole length of the bill and terminating in a strongly hooked nail, and of two lateral portions each separated from the median bar by a very narrow groove, in the basal part of which the small nostril opens; lower mandible thin, of two flexible arches supporting a large pouch of naked membrane.