page_title: List of birds of Costa Rica
section_title: Frigatebirds
hierarchical_section_title: List of birds of Costa Rica / Frigatebirds
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo by Matt Edmonds. Female Magnificent Frigatebird hovering over the Gulf of Mexico off St. Petersburg, FL 2007.
context_page_description: Although Costa Rica is a small country, it is in the bird-rich neotropical region and has a huge number of species for its area. The official bird list published by the Costa Rican Rare Birds and Records Committee of the Asociación Ornitológica de Costa Rica contained 922 species as of August 2019. This number is more than have been recorded in all of the 49 mainland United States and Canada combined. Of those species, seven are endemic, 69 are rare or accidental, and four have been introduced by humans. Another 73 are near-endemic with ranges that include only Costa Rica and Panama. Twenty-seven species, including five of the seven endemics, are globally vulnerable or endangered. Over an area of 51,100 km², an area smaller than West Virginia, this is the greatest density of bird species of any continental American country. About 600 species are resident, with most of the other regular visitors being winter migrants from North America.
  Costa Rica's geological formation played a large role in the diversification of avian species.
context_section_description: Order: Suliformes   Family: Fregatidae
  Frigatebirds are large seabirds usually found over tropical oceans. They are large, black-and-white or completely black, with long wings and deeply forked tails. The males have colored inflatable throat pouches. They do not swim or walk and cannot take off from a flat surface. Having the largest wingspan-to-body-weight ratio of any bird, they are essentially aerial, able to stay aloft for more than a week.
  Magnificent frigatebird, Fregata magnificens
  Great frigatebird, Fregata minor
caption: Magnificent frigatebird
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