Phaethon lepturus
Silhouette: Marie-Aimée ALLARD · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
The white-tailed tropicbird (Phaethon lepturus) or yellow-billed tropicbird is a tropicbird. It is the smallest of three closely related seabirds of the tropical oceans and smallest member of the order Phaethontiformes. It is found in the tropical Atlantic, western Pacific and Indian Oceans. It also breeds on some Caribbean islands, and a few pairs have started nesting recently on Little Tobago, joining the red-billed tropicbird colony. In addition to the tropical Atlantic, it nests as far north as Bermuda, where it is locally called a "longtail".
French zoologist François Marie Daudin described the white-tailed tropicbird in 1802. "White-tailed tropicbird" has been designated the official name by the International Ornithologists' Union (IOC). Its closest relative is the red-tailed tropicbird (P. rubricauda), the split between their ancestors taking place about four million years ago.
Six subspecies are recognised by the IOC: This form has a golden wash to the white plumage. P... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jaragua National Park | 🇩🇴 Dominican Republic |
More parks will be added in future updates.
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Santo Domingo | 🇩🇴 Dominican Republic |
No species of the same family or order lives in Jaragua National Park, so these are its closest relatives here: other birds.
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a White-tailed Tropicbird sighting in Jaragua National Park on a given day, based on 31 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 39th most-seen of the 92 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 40%, and over a week to about 70%, if each day is a fresh chance.
January and April
In those months about 40% of wildlife watchers report a White-tailed Tropicbird in Jaragua National Park on a given day, against under 5% in February and March, the lowest months. Those are among Jaragua National Park's driest months, with about 30 mm of rain a month against 120 mm in October. June to September have too few records to rate.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most White-tailed Tropicbird sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Jaragua National Park, in our data
Jaragua National Park is the only park on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate White-tailed Tropicbird sightings: about 20% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the White-tailed Tropicbird is recorded against all the birds logged in Jaragua National Park (31 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
