Northern populations winter in the warmer waters of the Caribbean and the tropical and subtropical Pacific and Atlantic coasts, but South American populations make only shorter movements in response to annual floods which extend their feeding areas in the river shallows.

The black skimmer was described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1755 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae and given the binomial name Rynchops niger.

[6] The basal half of the bill is red, the rest mainly black, and the lower mandible is much-elongated.

[7] They spend much time loafing gregariously on sandbars in the rivers, coasts and lagoons they frequent.

The black skimmer breeds in loose groups on sandbanks and sandy beaches in the Americas, the three to seven heavily dark-blotched buff or bluish eggs being incubated by both the male and female.

[8] Fish prey species include Odontesthes argentinenesis, Brevoortia aurea, Anchoa marinii, Lycengraulis grossidens, Engraulis anchoita, Pomatomus saltatrix, Mugil cephalus, Fundulus heteroclitus, Anchoa mitchilli[10] and Odontesthes incisa.

The survival of black skimmer chicks is highly dependent on the availability and quality of adequately sized prey closely located to the nest site.