Sterna sumatrana
The black-naped tern is an oceanic tern mostly found in tropical and subtropical areas of the Indian Ocean and western Pacific Ocean. They are rarely found inland. It was described from the islands around Sumatra. It is most closely related to roseate tern S. dougallii and white-fronted tern S. striata.

Mvbellad · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- black-naped ternPBDB
- Sits inside
- SternaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Charadriiformes
- Mass
- 106 gWikidata
Time the record covers
At most 12 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
3 occurrences of Sterna sumatrana on record, most of them in the Holocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
3 occurrences- Holocene100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Sterna sumatrana and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Sterna sumatrana and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
26 taxa- Alopecoenas xanthonurus2 sites
- Anous ceruleus2 sites
- Anous minutus2 sites
- Anous stolidus2 sites
- Fregata ariel2 sites
- Gallus gallus2 sites
- Gygis alba candida2 sites
- Numenius phaeopus2 sites
- Onychoprion fuscatus2 sites
- Onychoprion lunatus2 sites
- Pluvialis dominica2 sites
- Sterninae2 sites
- Tringa erythropus2 sites
- Amaurornis cinerea1 site
- Aplonis opaca1 site
- Charadrius leschenaultii1 site
- Ducula oceanica1 site
- Fregata minor1 site
- Heteroscelus1 site
- Phaethon lepturus1 site
- Platymantis1 site
- Pterodroma1 site
- Scolopacidae1 site
- Sula1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Sterna sumatrana, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
2 references- Biogeography and prehistoric exploitation of birds from Fais Island, Yap State, Federated States of Micronesia2
- Fossil vertebrates from Palau, Micronesia: a resource assessment1
Each of the 3 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Sterna sumatrana
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Mvbellad
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Sterna sumatrana was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itSterna through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Raffles 1822