Great auk

Great auk
Temporal range: Neogene – 1852 AD [1]
A large, stuffed bird with a black back, white belly, heavy bill, and white eye patch stands, amongst display cases and an orange wall
Specimen No. 8 and replica egg in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow

Extinct (1852)  (IUCN 3.1)[2]

Presumed Extinct (1852)  (NatureServe)[3]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Charadriiformes
Family: Alcidae
Genus: †Pinguinus
Bonnaterre, 1791
Species:
†P. impennis
Binomial name
†Pinguinus impennis
A map showing the range of the great auk, with the coasts of North America and Europe forming two boundaries, a line stretching from New England to northern Portugal the southern boundary, and the northern boundary wrapping around the southern shore of Greenland
Approximate range (in blue) with known breeding sites indicated by yellow marks[4][5]
Synonyms
List
  • Alca impennis Linnaeus, 1758
  • Plautus impennis (Linnaeus, 1758) Brünnich, 1772
  • Pingouin impennis (Linnaeus, 1758) Buffon, 1817
  • Alca borealis Forster, 1817
  • Chenalopex impennis (Linnaeus, 1758) Vieillot, 1818
  • Alca major Boie, 1822
  • Mataeoptera impennis (Linnaeus, 1758) Gloger, 1842

The great auk (Pinguinus impennis), also known as the penguin or garefowl, is a species of flightless alcid that became extinct in the mid-19th century. It was the only modern species in the genus Pinguinus. It is unrelated to the penguins of the Southern Hemisphere, which were named for their resemblance to this species.

It bred on rocky, remote islands with easy access to the ocean and a plentiful food supply, a rarity in nature that provided only a few breeding sites for the great auks. During the non-breeding season, the auk foraged in the waters of the North Atlantic, ranging as far south as northern Spain and along the coastlines of Canada, Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Norway, Ireland, and Great Britain.

The bird was 75 to 85 centimetres (30 to 33 inches) tall and weighed about 5 kilograms (11 pounds), making it the largest alcid to survive into the modern era, and the second-largest member of the alcid family overall (the prehistoric Miomancalla was larger).[6] It had a black back and a white belly. The black beak was heavy and hooked, with grooves on its surface. During summer, great auk plumage showed a white patch over each eye. During winter, the great auk lost these patches, instead developing a white band stretching between the eyes. The wings were only 15 cm (6 in) long, rendering the bird flightless. Instead, the great auk was a powerful swimmer, a trait that it used in hunting. Its favourite prey were fish, including Atlantic menhaden and capelin, and crustaceans. Although agile in the water, it was clumsy on land. Great auk pairs mated for life. They nested in extremely dense and social colonies, laying one egg on bare rock. The egg was white with variable brown marbling. Both parents participated in the incubation of the egg for around six weeks before the young hatched. The young left the nest site after two to three weeks, although the parents continued to care for it.

The great auk was an important part of many Native American cultures, both as a food source and as a symbolic item. Many Maritime Archaic people were buried with great auk bones. One burial discovered included someone covered by more than 200 great auk beaks, which are presumed to be the remnants of a cloak made of great auks' skins. Early European explorers to the Americas used the great auk as a convenient food source or as fishing bait, reducing its numbers. The bird's down was in high demand in Europe, a factor that largely eliminated the European populations by the mid-16th century. Around the same time, nations such as Great Britain began to realize that the great auk was disappearing and it became the beneficiary of many early environmental laws, but despite that, the great auk were still hunted.

Its growing rarity increased interest from European museums and private collectors in obtaining the skins and eggs of the bird. On 3 June 1844, the last two confirmed specimens were killed on Eldey, off the coast of Iceland, ending the last known breeding attempt. Later reports of roaming individuals being seen or caught are unconfirmed. A report of one great auk in 1852 is considered by some to be the last sighting of a member of the species. The great auk is mentioned in several novels, and the scientific journal of the American Ornithological Society was named The Auk (now Ornithology) in honor of the bird until 2021.

  1. ^ Finlayson, Clive (2011). Avian survivors: The History and Biogeography of Palearctic Birds. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 157. ISBN 978-1408137314.
  2. ^ BirdLife International (2021). "Pinguinus impennis". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2021: e.T22694856A205919631. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2021-3.RLTS.T22694856A205919631.en. Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  3. ^ "NatureServe Explorer 2.0". explorer.natureserve.org. Retrieved 31 March 2022.
  4. ^ Grieve, Symington (1885). The Great Auk, or Garefowl: Its history, archaeology, and remains. Thomas C. Jack, London. ISBN 978-0665066245.
  5. ^ Parkin, Thomas (1894). The Great Auk, or Garefowl. J.E. Budd, Printer. Retrieved 14 May 2010.
  6. ^ Smith, N (2015). "Evolution of body mass in the Pan-Alcidae (Aves, Charadriiformes): the effects of combining neontological and paleontological data". Paleobiology. 42 (1): 8–26. Bibcode:2016Pbio...42....8S. doi:10.1017/pab.2015.24. S2CID 83934750.