Creature Feature Encyclopedia: Aves

Blue-Footed Booby Sula nebouxii

The Blue-Footed Booby's curious name comes from an English version of the Spanish word for clown, which is bobo. To impress their partners, as this booby seems to be doing, they strut around, showing off their brilliant blue feet. Boobies are large seabirds specifically adapted for dramatic plunge-diving. The tapered body, long wings and tail, and sleek, pointed bill enable boobies to fish underwater. Blue-footed Boobies live among some of the smaller Galapagos Islands, in the remote Pacific 600 miles from South America. They feed close to shore, unlike other boobies. Baby boobies eat partially digested fish regurgitated by their parents.

~A Fly in the Sky © 1996