The relict gullor Central Asian gull (Ichthyaetus relictus) is a medium-sized gull. It was believed to be an eastern race of the Mediterranean gull until 1971 and was traditionally placed in the genusLarus.
The gull is 44 to 45 cm long with a stocky, thick body. Non-breeding adults feature uniformly dark-smudged ear-coverts and hind crown, white-tipped wings, prominent, isolated black subterminal markings on outer primaries, and no white leading edge to outer wing. Breeding birds have black hoods (including napes) with grey-brown foreheads, and broad, white, half-moon colouring behind, below, and above their eyes. Their legs are orange and their bills scarlet. The name comes from its status as a relict species.[3]
The gulls breed starting in early June and going through early August in colonies on islands in saltwaterlakes.[4] These sites are fragile. Nesting does not occur when lakes dry up or when water levels are too high. When islands become too small or overgrown with vegetation or so large that they join at the shore, the birds do not nest either.[5] During non-breeding periods, the birds can be found on estuarine mud and sandflats.
The population is estimated to be at 10,000 or fewer, with numbers dropping. It is classified as "vulnerable" on the IUCN Red List. Its greatest threats are changes of water level in the breeding lakes, predation from other gulls, hailstorms and flooding. Human disturbance has increased their vulnerability to all these factors, resulting in further risks for the adult gulls and increased mortality for chicks and eggs. They are also experiencing trouble migrating to breeding grounds due to the lack of useable stopover locations.[6] In order to combat this, nature reserves in Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Russia have been established, for example in the Mongol Daguur region.
^Li, T., Guo, S., An, D., & Nametso, M. (2019). Study on water and salt balance of plateau salt marsh wetland based on time-space watershed analysis. Ecological Engineering, 138, 160–170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2019.07.027
^Wang, Q., Yang, C., Hu, D., Xiao, H., & Zhang, D. H. (2022). Breeding Population Dynamics of Relict Gull (Larus relictus) in Hongjian Nur, Shaanxi, China. Animals, 12(8), 1035. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12081035
^Liu, D., Zhang, G., Jiang, H., Chen, L., Meng, D., & Lu, J. (2017). Seasonal dispersal and longitudinal migration in the Relict Gull Larus relictus across the Inner-Mongolian Plateau. PeerJ, 5, e3380. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3380
Pons J.M., Hassanin, A., and Crochet P.A.(2005). Phylogenetic relationships within the Laridae (Charadriiformes: Aves) inferred from mitochondrial markers. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 37(3):686-699
