Brachyramphus is a small genus of seabirds from the North Pacific. It consists of three species: The Sooty Tern is highly aerial and marine and will spend years flying at sea without returning to land. ... For other meanings of pacific, see pacific (disambiguation). ...

• Marbled Murrelet, Brachyramphus marmoratus
• Long-billed Murrelet Brachyramphus perdix
• Kittlitz's Murrelet, Brachyramphus brevirostris

These are unusual member of the auk family, often nesting far inland in forests or on mountain tops. The Long-billed Murrelet was considered conspecific with the Marbled Murrelet until 1998, when Friesen et al showed that the mtDNA variation was greater between these two forms than between Marbled and Kittlitz's Murrelets. Binomial name Brachyramphus marmoratus (Gmelin, 1789) The Marbled Murrelet, Brachyramphus marmoratus is a small seabird from the North Pacific. ... Binomial name Brachyramphus marmoratus (Gmelin, 1789) The Marbled Murrelet, Brachyramphus marmoratus is a small seabird from the North Pacific. ... Binomial name Brachyramphus brevirostris (Vigors, 1829) The Kittlitzs Murrelet, (Brachyramphus brevirostris) is a small auk found in the waters off Alaska and Eastern Siberia. ... Genera Uria Alle Alca Pinguinus Synthliboramphus Cepphus Brachyramphus Ptychoramphus Aethia Cerorhinca Fratercula Extinct genera, see Systematics Auks are birds of the family Alcidae in the order Charadriiformes. ... Temperate rainforest on Northern Slopes of the Alborz mountain ranges, Iran A dense growth of softwoods (a conifer forest) in the Sierra Nevada Range of Northern California A decidous broadleaf (Beech) forest in Slovenia. ... Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is DNA which is not located in the nucleus of the cell but in the mitochondria. ...

These species breed in the subarctic North Pacific. They tend to remain coastal in winter, either staying near the breeding grounds, or, in the case of Long-billed, migrating to the coast of Japan. Flock of Barnacle Geese during autumn migration Many species of birds undertake seasonal journeys of various lengths, a phenomenon known as Bird migration. ...

2 prehistoric species have been described from Late Pliocene fossils, found in the San Diego Formation of the southwestern USA: Brachyramphus dunkeli and Brachyramphus pliocenum The Pliocene epoch (spelled Pleiocene in some older texts) is the period in the geologic timescale that extends from 5. ... Three small ammonite fossils, each approximately 1. ...

Description

These are small chunky auks, no more than 25 cm long. Like other auks, they have plumage that varies by season. The non-breeding appearance is typically white underneath with mainly black upperparts. The breeding plumage is distinctive in this group; most auks are strongly contrasted with black and white when breeding, but Brachyramphus species are mainly brown, with pale feather edges giving a scaly appearance; the central underparts, normally below the surface on a swimming bird, are white. Closeup on a single white feather A feather is one of the epidermal growths that forms the distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on a bird. ...

Behaviour and breeding

These murrelets feeds at sea on small fish, larval fish, krill and other small zooplankton. Chicks are fed with larger fish carried in the bill. Families Euphausiidae Euphausia Dana, 1852 Meganyctiphanes Holt and W. M. Tattersall, 1905 Nematobrachion Calman, 1905 Nematoscelis G. O. Sars, 1883 Nyctiphanes G. O. Sars, 1883 Pseudeuphausia Hansen, 1910 Stylocheiron G. O. Sars, 1883 Tessarabrachion Hansen, 1911 Thysanoessa Brandt, 1851 Thysanopoda Latreille, 1831 Bentheuphausiidae Bentheuphausia amblyops Krill are shrimp-like marine... Photomontage of plankton organisms Plankton are any drifting organism that inhabits the water column of oceans, seas, and bodies of fresh water. ...

The breeding behaviour of this genus is very unusual. Unlike most other seabirds, they do not breed in colonies or even necessarily close to the sea, instead nesting, depending on species, on branches of old-growth conifers, mountaintops, or on open ground. They lay one egg on bare ground or on a thick lichen- or moss-covered branch or hollow. The egg is incubated for a month, then the chick is fed for around 40 days until it fledges and flies unaccompanied to the sea. Breeding success is low and chick mortality high. Orders & Families Cordaitales † Pinales   Pinaceae - Pine family   Araucariaceae - Araucaria family   Podocarpaceae - Yellow-wood family   Sciadopityaceae - Umbrella-pine family   Cupressaceae - Cypress family   Cephalotaxaceae - Plum-yew family   Taxaceae - Yew family Vojnovskyales † Voltziales † The conifers, division Pinophyta, are one of 13 or 14 division level taxa within the Kingdom Plantae. ... In most birds and reptiles, an egg (Latin ovum) is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum. ... Lichenes from Ernst Haeckels Artforms of Nature, 1904 Lichens are symbiotic associations of a fungus (the mycobiont) with a photosynthetic partner (the photobiont also known as the phycobiont) that can produce food for the lichen from sunlight. ... Subclasses Sphagnidae Andreaeidae Tetraphidae Polytrichidae Archidiidae Buxbaumiidae Bryidae Mosses are small, soft plants that are typically 1–10 cm tall, though some species are much larger. ... Fledge is the stage in a young birds life when the feathers and wing muscles are sufficiently developed for flight. ...

Threats

All three Brachyramphus murrelets are globally threatened and declining in numbers. The biggest threat are the loss of nesting habitat, due to the loss of old growth forest to logging and retreating, entanglement in fishing gear and oil spills. Habitat (which is Latin for it inhabits) is the place where a particular species lives and grows. ... Loggers on break, c. ... Fishing is the activity of hunting for fish by hooking, trapping, or gathering animals not classifiable as insects which breathe in water or pass their lives in water. ... An oil spill or oil slick is the unintentional release of liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment as a result of human activity. ...

References

• "National Geographic" Field Guide to the Birds of North America ISBN 0-7922-6877-6
• Seabirds, an Identification Guide by Peter Harrison, (1983) ISBN 0-7470-1410-8
• Handbook of the Birds of the World Vol 3, Josep del Hoyo editor, ISBN 84-87334-20-2
• Maumary, Lionel and Peter Knaus (2000) Marbled Murrelet in Switzerland: a Pacific Ocean auk new to the Western Palearctic British Birds 93:190-199 (this article on Europe's first Long-billed Murrelet was published when the species was regarded as conspecific with Marbled Murrelet; the latter species has not occurred in Europe)
• Friesen et al, Evidence from allozymes and cytochrome b sequences for a new species of alcid, the Long-billed Murrelet, published in Condor.