ABSTRACT
Depending on authority, the Sulidae family contains either six or nine species. Representatives are found throughout tropical and sub-tropical oceans, and in the north (N) Atlantic. Five are known in Afrotropical waters. Two occur along the Kenya coast as apparently regular, non-breeding visitors, while a third is more strictly oceanic and only a very rare straggler inshore. Red-footed booby is found in most areas of the world's tropical oceans and breeds on islands in the Indian Ocean, it is very rare in African coastal waters, with records for the E seaboard of only stragglers to S Somalia and Kenya. Masked booby found over most of the tropical oceans. It breeds on Indian Ocean islands. The Northern Gannet is found in the N Atlantic south to Senegambia, while the Cape Gannet breeds in S Africa and extends N to the Gulf of Guinea and, on the E seaboard, to Tanzania.
