Seagulls have dark wings by design

 Image courtesy of Jacinto Escaray/Shutterstock.

Joel Kontinen 

Many gliding birds have long and thin wings, but seagulls have none. now, a British scientist has noted how albatrosses wings are about 10°C warmer than the white surface underneath and she decided to test this in seagulls also.

Madeleine Goumas “found that greater wing loading was associated with darker shades of grey on the mantle and with the proportion of black markings on the wing tips. More specifically, species with larger bodies and smaller wings, like the great black-backed gull (Larus marinus) and Olrog’s gull (Larus atlanticus), tended to have darker mantles and wing tips, whereas the colouring was lighter in birds with smaller bodies and wider wings, like the ivory gull (Pagophila eburnea), which is completely white.”

So it seems that intelligent design is taking a role in which seagulls act.

Source: 

 Lesté-Lasserre , Christa. 2022. Why do seagulls have dark wings? It may help them glide in the air..  New Scientist 22 November