Biology:Rookery

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Short description: Colony of breeding animals
The Rooks Have Come Back Again, Alexei Savrasov, 1871, canvas, oil, The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

A rookery is a colony breeding rooks, and more broadly a colony of several types of breeding animals, generally gregarious[1] birds.[2]

Coming from the nesting habits of rooks, the term is used for corvids and the breeding grounds[3] of colony-forming seabirds, marine mammals (true seals and sea lions), and even some turtles. Rooks (northern-European and central-Asian members of the crow family) have multiple nests in prominent colonies at the tops of trees.[4] Paleontological evidence points to the existence of rookery-like colonies in the pterosaur Pterodaustro.[5]

The term rookery was also borrowed as a name for dense slum housing in nineteenth-century cities, especially in London.[6]

See also

References

  1. Mayntz, Melissa (December 17, 2020). "Rookery - Nesting Colonies" (in en). https://www.thespruce.com/glossary-definition-rookery-385367. 
  2. "Rookery". The Free Dictionary. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/rookery. 
  3. Ceriani; Weishampel; Ehrhart; Mansfield; Wunder (4 December 2017). "Foraging and recruitment hotspot dynamics for the largest Atlantic loggerhead turtle rookery". Scientific Reports 7 (1): 16894. doi:10.1038/s41598-017-17206-3. PMID 29203929. 
  4. However, since rooks are found in Europe and Asia and are unlike herons, and corvids do not nest in large masses in the Western world, it is more fitting to refer to birds that nest with herons as nesting in a Heronry or seabirds or other birds nesting together in trees, cliffs, or on the ground as nesting in a breeding colony. "The Crow Family". Wild England. http://www.wildengland.com/wild-animals/resident-birds/-crow-family. 
  5. "Discovery News New Pterosaur Fossils Reveal Diversity". Dsc.discovery.com. http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20041129/pterosaur.html. 
  6. "History of the Seven Dials Area". Sevendials.com. http://www.sevendials.com/seven_dials.php.