Blue-Footed Booby Facts

Blue-Footed Booby Facts

1. The Galapagos Islands are home to three very interesting birds, the Nazca booby, red-footed booby, and the blue-footed booby -three of the Earth’s six species of boobies. Boobies are also called “piqueros” (Spanish for the way they dive).

2. The Blue-footed booby gets its name from the Spanish word bobo, which means dumb or fool.  The reason they were given this name is because they stupidly land on ships, making them an easy kill for humans. They still follow ships, most likely from curiosity. 

3. Blue-footed boobies live in the pacific ocean and breed on islands there. The most famous blue-footed booby breeding island is the Galapagos Islands, which is off the coast of Ecuador. Almost all breeding cites are in the Peru current, where there is lots of fish. Because they eat so well, blue-footed boobies usually have two to three chicks.  They are one of two boobies that raises more then one chick. 

4. As with all boobies, the males can be distinguished by their voices-they have a pleasant whistle. 

5. Additionally, it is easy to distinguish the female blue-footed booby because of the dark ring of pigment around her pupil.

6. Blue-footed boobies diet is made completely up of fish and squid. When they spot a fish, blue-footed boobies dive down and grab the fish.  When they spot a school of fish, the blue-footed boobies plummet down into the school together.  The predators that eat Blue-Footed Boobies are humans.

7. Males raise their leg to attract females. 

8. Males weigh 2 ¾ pounds, females weigh 4 pounds.

9. Blue-footed boobies are the only boobies that hunt cooperatively.

10. Blue-footed boobies have a torpedo shaped body.

11. The Male Booby's strut and show off their blue feet at mating rituals.

12. The Bluer the male Booby's feet the more attracted the female is to him.

13. The female booby's feet are not as blue as the male booby's feet.

14. The blue feet of the booby is used to keep young warm, the males also help take care of the babies.

15. Male Boobies will dance and strut all over showing off their blue feet to Female Boobies.

16, Male and Female Boobies will dance by putting their bills in the air and stretching out their wings.

17. It is often part of the ritual for the male Booby to go and get stuff for the nest.

18. Both Boobies care for their eggs. Boobies will also usually raise more than one nest of eggs together.

19. Boobies hang out in colonies on the shore and feed at sea in the day, usually in groups that fly out to sea together.

20. More boobies are likely to die at a early age and not many survive to there full age, 17 and 16 are very old for blue footed boobies.

21. Large, webbed feet help propel the bird through water at high speeds.