Seagulls don't exist. That isn't me weighing in on the hilarious birds aren't real conspiracy theory.

That's just a fact about the English language. Now, I see language as a flexible thing. If most

English speakers call them seagulls, they may as well be, but if we are going to talk about actual words,

seagulls don't exist. And I'm only telling you this so you can avoid embarrassment when amongst

birders. Seagull is a misnomer, applied to a real group of animals called gulls. Saying seagull is like saying ocean duck. It is an unnecessary add-on that

doesn't show up in the dictionary. Actually, it's worse than saying ocean duck because not all

quote-unquote seagulls even live by the sea. There are dozens of species of gulls, many of them shorebirds and

sea birds, but some of them are not. Today, however, we are talking about an animal that is a sea

gull, if there ever was one. Today we are talking about the king of gulls, the largest gull on earth,

an animal that has stood on our shoulders to reach new and impressive heights.

The bane of beachgoers, the scourge of chihuahuas, the great black-backed gull.

Laris Marinus.

I'm Mackin. This is Species.

Welcome to the show.

Today, I am almost certainly going to use the word sea-gull, despite it being incorrect.

Gull just doesn't have the same weight, and great black-backed gull feels a little too heavy.

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