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Search Issues: Update 2026-09-16 - Repairs to some of our search pages are ongoing. Thank you for your continued patience!
Meanwhile, elements of the Advanced Search are working and the Alphabetical Listings are working, too.
Laughing Gull, a bird (see Hunn, attestations)
See an image that represents pipitztli in the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities, 2020-present).
PIPITZ-TLI, Laughing Gull (Leucophaeus atricilla) [FC: 39 Pipitztli] “It also lives in the water. Its head is black; its eyes are also black; white [feathers] are set on the eyelids [so that these] appear to be its eyes. It is somewhat long-necked. The throat and breast are white. Down the back of its neck, on its back, its tail, wings, wing-tips, it is black. The tops of both wing-bends are white. Its legs are quite long, chili-red, slender…. Some migrate, some remain and rear their young here. Four are its eggs; only on the ground, on dried mud, on the plain, or somewhere on the top of a clod it lays its eggs; not on gras nor feathers.” This must be the Laughing Gull, as it is the only gull known to nest in Central Mexico (Howell & Webb). The descriptive details all fit nicely.