Least tern

Weight

45.9 g – 49.3 g

Length

Not recorded

Lifespan

23.9 years

Diet

Aquatic predator

Main food

Not recorded

Habitat

marine

Egg incubation

21 days

Young per litter or clutch

2

Age at maturity

18 months – 3 years

Litters or clutches a year

1

Lifestyle

Aerial

Migration

Migratory

Conservation status

Not recorded

Countries on record

Not recorded

Not recorded

No conservation assessment is recorded for this species in our sources. That is not the same as being safe: it has not been matched to an assessment.

1. kingdomAnimalia
2. phylumChordata
3. classAves
4. orderCharadriiformes
5. familyLaridae
6. genusSternula
7. SpeciesSternula antillarum R. Lesson, 1847

Synonyms Sterna antillarum, Sterna minuta, Sternula albifrons antillarum

Catalogue of Life

LC, Least Concern

Little tern

Sternula albifrons

Laridae

S

Saunders' tern

Sternula saundersi

LaridaeNo free photo yet

F

Fairy tern

Sternula nereis

LaridaeNo free photo yet

A

Amazon tern

Sternula superciliaris

LaridaeNo free photo yet

D

Damara tern

Sternula balaenarum

LaridaeNo free photo yet

C

Chilean tern

Sternula lorata

LaridaeNo free photo yet

CompareLeast tern vs Little ternLeast tern vs Saunders' ternLeast tern vs Fairy ternLeast tern vs Amazon tern

• An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles · CC0 1.0 · E096-269
  Myhrvold, N.P., Baldridge, E., Chan, B., Sivam, D., Freeman, D.L. & Ernest, S.K.M. (2015) An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96: 3109. https://doi.org/10.1890/15-0846R.1. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3563457.v1
• AmphiBIO, a global database for amphibian ecological traits · CC BY 4.0 · v1
  Oliveira, B.F., São-Pedro, V.A., Santos-Barrera, G., Penone, C. & Costa, G.C. (2017) AmphiBIO, a global database for amphibian ecological traits. Scientific Data 4: 170123. https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2017.123. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.4644424.v5
• AVONET: morphological, ecological and geographical data for all birds · CC BY 4.0 · v7
  Tobias, J.A. et al. (2022) AVONET: morphological, ecological and geographical data for all birds. Ecology Letters 25: 581–597. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13898. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.16586228.v7
• Catalogue of Life eXtended Release · CC BY 4.0 · 2026-10-16 XR
  Catalogue of Life (2026). Catalogue of Life eXtended Release, version 2026-10-16 XR. Catalogue of Life Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.48580/dgzlf
• Wikimedia Commons · per file (CC0 / public domain / CC BY green, CC BY-SA amber, anything else not displayed) · 2026-11-11
  Wikimedia Commons contributors. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org (each file credited to its author under its own licence).
• EltonTraits 1.0: species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals · CC0 1.0 · 1.0
  Wilman, H., Belmaker, J., Simpson, J., de la Rosa, C., Rivadeneira, M.M. & Jetz, W. (2014) EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95: 2027. https://doi.org/10.1890/13-1917.1. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3559887.v1
• Wikidata · CC0 1.0 · 2026-11-11
  Wikidata contributors. Wikidata. https://www.wikidata.org (data retrieved via the Wikidata Query Service).
• Wikipedia (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 2026-11-11
  Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org (text under CC BY-SA 4.0; each block names its article and revision).

@misc{least_tern_2026,
  title = {Least tern (Sternula antillarum)},
  author = {{CreatureData}},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://creaturedata.com/animals/least-tern},
  note = {Data as of 2026-11-11}
}