Yellow-legged Gull - Classification

Classification

It is now generally accepted that the Yellow-legged Gull is a full species, but until recently there was much disagreement. For example, British Birds magazine split Yellow-legged Gull from Herring Gull in 1993 but included the Caspian Gull in the former, but the BOU in Great Britain retained the Yellow-legged Gull as a subspecies of the Herring Gull until 2007. DNA research however suggests that Yellow-legged Gull is actually closest to Great Black-backed Gull L. marinus and Armenian Gull L. armenicus, while Caspian Gull is closer to Herring Gull and Lesser Black-backed Gull L. fuscus, rather than being each other's closest relatives.

There are two subspecies of the Yellow-legged Gull:

• Larus michahellis michahellis Naumann, 1840. Mediterranean.
• Larus michahellis atlantis (Dwight, 1922), syn. Larus fuscus atlantis Dwight, 1922. Macaronesia (Canary Islands, Madeira, Azores). Birds breeding on the Atlantic coasts of Morocco, Portugal and Galicia (and spreading north from there) are usually also included here, but are sometimes considered to be a third subspecies L. m. lusitanius. Atlantic Ocean birds have darker wings and back by comparison with Mediterranean birds, creating a more pronounced contrast to the white parts.