Manx Shearwater
Puffinus puffinus (left)
Conservation status
Least Concern
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Procellariiformes Family: Procellariidae Genus: Puffinus Species: P. puffinus
Binomial name
Puffinus puffinus (Brünnich, 1764)
Synonyms
Procellaria puffinus Brünnich, 1764 Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 540 pixel Image in higher resolution (1260 × 850 pixel, file size: 55 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Puffinus puffinus (left) and Puffinus griseus (right) Source: http://www. ... The conservation status of a species is an indicator of the likelihood of that species continuing to survive either in the present day or the future. ... Image File history File links Status_iucn3. ... Least Concern (LC) is an IUCN category assigned to extant species or lower taxa which have been evaluated but do not qualify for any other category. ... Scientific classification or biological classification is a method by which biologists group and categorize species of organisms. ... “Animalia” redirects here. ... Typical Classes See below Chordates (phylum Chordata) are a group of animals that includes the vertebrates, together with several closely related invertebrates. ... For other meanings of bird, see bird (disambiguation). ... Families Procellariidae Diomedeidae Hydrobatidae Pelecanoididae Procellariiformes (from the Latin procella, a storm) is an order of birds formerly called Tubinares and still called tubenoses in English. ... Genera Several, List of Procellariidae. ... Genus Puffinus Brisson, 1760 Puffinus is a genus of seabirds in the order Procellariiformes. ... In biology, binomial nomenclature is the formal method of naming species. ... Morten Thrane Brünnich (September 30, 1737 - September 19, 1827) was a Danish zoologist and mineralogist. ... 1764 was a leap year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... In scientific nomenclature, synonyms are different scientific names used for a single taxon. ...

The Manx Shearwater (Puffinus puffinus) is a medium-sized shearwater in the seabird family Procellariidae. Despite the scientific name, this species is completely unrelated to the puffins, which are auks, the only resemblance being that they are both burrow-nesting seabirds. Genera Procellaria Calonectris Puffinus †See also fulmar, prion, petrel Shearwaters are medium-sized long-winged seabirds. ... The Sooty Tern is highly aerial and marine and will spend years flying at sea without returning to land. ... Genera Several, List of Procellariidae. ... In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biodiversity. ... Binomial name Fratercula arctica (Linnaeus, 1758) The Atlantic Puffin (Fratercula arctica) is a seabird in the auk family. ... 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. ...

The prefix Manx, meaning from the Isle of Man, originated owing to the once large colony of Manx Shearwaters found on the Calf of Man (a small island just south of the Isle of Man). The species had declined there owing to the accidental introduction of rats from a shipwreck in the late eighteenth century; the rats have, however, recently been removed from the Calf of Man allowing Shearwater numbers to increase. The Calf of Man is a small island, almost 1 square mile (2. ...

This species breeds in the North Atlantic, with major colonies on islands and coastal cliffs around Great Britain and Ireland. These birds have been nesting along the Atlantic coast of northeastern North America since about 1970. They nest in burrows, laying one white egg which is only visited at night to avoid predation by large gulls. They form life-long monogamous pair-bonds. The Atlantic Ocean forms a component of the all-encompassing World Ocean and is directly linked to the Arctic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the Southern Ocean. ... World map showing North America A satellite composite image of North America. ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday. ... Look up gull in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

This bird is 30-38 cm long, with a 76-89 cm wingspan. It has the typically "shearing" flight of the genus, dipping from side to side on stiff wings with few wingbeats, the wingtips almost touching the water. This bird looks like a flying cross, with its wing held at right angles to the body, and it changes from black to white as the black upperparts and white undersides are alternately exposed as it travels low over the sea. “Aves” redirects here. ...

This is a gregarious species, which can been seen in large numbers from boats or headlands, especially on passage in autumn. It is silent at sea, but at night the breeding colonies are alive with raucous cackling calls. The Manx Shearwater feeds on small fish (particularly herring, sprat and sardines), crustaceans, cephalopods and surface offal. The bird forages individually or in small flocks, and it makes use of feeding marine mammals and schools of predatory fish, which push prey species up to the surface. It does not follow boats. Flock of Barnacle Geese during autumn migration Many species of birds undertake seasonal journeys of various lengths, a phenomenon known as Bird migration. ... A giant grouper at the Georgia Aquarium Fish are aquatic vertebrates that are typically cold-blooded; covered with scales, and equipped with two sets of paired fins and several unpaired fins. ... Species Clupea alba Clupea bentincki Clupea caspiopontica Clupea chrysotaenia Clupea elongata Clupea halec Clupea harengus Clupea inermis Clupea leachii Clupea lineolata Clupea minima Clupea mirabilis Clupea pallasii Clupea sardinacaroli Clupea sulcata Herrings are small oily fish of the genus Clupea found in the shallow, temperate waters of the North Atlantic... Sprat is a name given to a number of small, herring-like, marine fish in the family Clupeidae, notably in the genera Clupeonella and Sprattus. ... Sardines in the Pacific An open Sardines can Sardines on a plate grilled Sardines For the hide and seek-like game, see Hide and seek. ... Classes & Subclasses Branchiopoda Phyllopoda Sarsostraca Remipedia Cephalocarida Maxillopoda Thecostraca Tantulocarida Branchiura Pentastomida Mystacocarida Copepoda Ostracoda Myodocopa Podocopa Malacostraca Phyllocarida Hoplocarida Eumalacostraca The nauplius larva of a dendrobranchiate Porcellio scaber, the common rough woodlouse, a terrestrial crustacean Pollicipes polymerus, the gooseneck barnacle Glyphea pseudastacus, a fossil glypheoid The crustaceans (Crustacea) are... Orders Subclass Nautiloidea †Plectronocerida †Ellesmerocerida †Actinocerida †Pseudorthocerida †Endocerida †Tarphycerida †Oncocerida †Discosorida Nautilida †Orthocerida †Ascocerida †Bactritida Subclass †Ammonoidea †Goniatitida †Ceratitida †Ammonitida Subclass Coleoidea †Belemnoidea †Aulacocerida †Belemnitida †Hematitida †Phragmoteuthida Neocoleoidea (most living cephalopods) ?†Boletzkyida Sepiida Sepiolida Spirulida Teuthida Octopoda Vampyromorphida The cephalopods (Greek plural (kephalópoda); head-foot) are the mollusk class... Scrapple sandwich at the Delaware state fair Offal is the entrails and internal organs of a butchered animal. ... A Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae), a member of Order Cetacea A Leopard seal (Hydrurga leptonyx), a member of infrafamily Pinnipedia A West Indian Manatee (Trichechus manatus), a member of Order Sirenia A marine mammal is a mammal that is primarily ocean-dwelling or depends on the ocean for its food. ...

They are extraordinarily long-lived. A Manx Shearwater breeding on Copeland Island, Northern Ireland, was as of 2003/2004 the oldest known living wild bird in the world: ringed as an adult (at least 5 years old) in July 1953, it was retrapped in July 2003, at least 55 years old. The Copeland Islands is a group of islands in the north Irish Sea, north of Donaghadee, County Down, Northern Ireland consisting of Lighthouse, Mew and Copeland Island. ... Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom lying in the northeast of the island of Ireland, covering 5,459 square miles (14,139 km², about a sixth of the islands total area). ... Bird ringing (also known as bird banding) is an aid to studying wild birds, by attaching a small individually numbered metal or plastic ring to their legs or wings, so that various aspects of the birds life can be studied by the ability to re-find the same individual...

Manx Shearwaters migrate over 10,000 km to South America in winter, using waters off southern Brazil and Argentina, so this bird has covered a minimum of 1,000,000 km on migration alone (not counting day-to-day fishing trips). Another bird ringed in 1957 and breeding on Bardsey Island off Wales, was calculated by ornithologist Chris Mead to have flown over 8 million km (5 million miles) during its life (this bird was still alive in 2004, having outlived Mead). Flock of Barnacle Geese during autumn migration Many species of birds undertake seasonal journeys of various lengths, a phenomenon known as Bird migration. ... South America South America is a continent crossed by the equator, with most of its area in the Southern Hemisphere. ... 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Bardsey Island (Welsh: Ynys Enlli) lies off the Lleyn peninsula, in north Wales. ... This article is about the country. ... Christopher John (Chris) Mead (b. ... shelby was here 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Puffinus puffinus "superspecies"

At some time or another, every living one of the middle-sized species of Puffinus has been considered a subspecies of P. puffinus. The extant Yelkouan Shearwater and Balearic Shearwater (Sangster et al. 2002), Hutton's Shearwater^{[citation needed]}, Black-vented Shearwater^{[citation needed]}, Townsend's Shearwater^{[citation needed]}, the Hawaiian Shearwater^{[citation needed]}, and the Fluttering Shearwater^{[citation needed]} are now considered good species. Of these, only the Hawaiian and possibly Townsend's Shearwaters seem to be somewhat closely related to the Manx Shearwater (Austin 1996); the former Puffinus puffinus "superspecies" has turned out to be a number of more or less distantly related lineages. However, including the extinct forms listed below, at least the Mediterranean taxa do apparently constitute a superspecies in their own right, and maybe the New Zealand ones also. Binomial name Puffinus yelkouan (Acerbi, 1827) The Yelkouan Shearwater (Puffinus yelkouan), also known as the Mediterranean Shearwater, is a medium-sized shearwater in the seabird family Procellariidae. ... Binomial name Puffinus mauretanicus Lowe, 1921 The Mediterranean Shearwater (Puffinus mauretanicus), also known as the Balearic Shearwater, is a medium-sized shearwater in the seabird family Procellariidae. ... Binomial name Puffinus opisthomelas Coues, 1864 The Black-vented Shearwater (Puffinus opisthomlas) is a species of seabird. ... Binomial name Puffinus auricularis Townsend, 1890 Synonyms Puffinus auricularis auricularis Townsends Shearwater, Puffinus auricularis is a rare seabird of the tropics from the family Procellariidae. ... In biology, a cryptic species complex is a group of species that satisfy the scientific definition of species — that is, they are reproductively isolated from each other — but which are not morphologically distinguishable. ...

Also belonging to this complex seem to be several extinct species: In biology and ecology, extinction is the ceasing of existence of a species or group of species. ...

• Olson's Shearwater, Puffinus olsoni from the Canary Islands, as was
• Hole's Shearwater, Puffinus holeae, which also occurred on the western coasts of Iberia, and
• Scarlett's Shearwater, Puffinus spelaeus of South Island, New Zealand;

undescribed remains found on Menorca may belong to an already-named or a new taxon; they are not from the Balearic Shearwater (Alcover 2001) which is possibly closer to P. holeae than to any other known species, living or extinct^{[citation needed]}. There also existed a Late Pliocene/Early Pleistocene species known from Ibiza, Puffinus nestori, which may have been the direct ancestor of the Mediterranean Shearwater (Heidrich et al. 1998). Capital Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Santa Cruz de Tenerife Official language(s) Spanish Area  â€“ Total  â€“ % of Spain Ranked 13th  7,447 km²  1. ... The Iberian Peninsula, or Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe. ... Minorca (Menorca both in Catalan and Spanish and increasingly in English usage; from Latin insula minor, later Minorica minor island) is one of the Balearic Islands (Illes Balears Catalan official name, Islas Baleares in Spanish), located in the Mediterranean Sea, and belonging to Spain. ... The Pliocene epoch (spelled Pleiocene in some older texts) is the period in the geologic timescale that extends from 5. ... The Pleistocene epoch (IPA: ) is part of the geologic timescale. ... Ibiza (Catalan: Eivissa) is one of the Balearic Islands located in the Mediterranean Sea (), belonging to Balearic Islands (Spain). ...

The Atlantic forms are parapatric whereas the Pacific forms are sympatric or were not too long ago (Holdaway et al. 2001) and are reproductively isolated by a different circannual rhythm. The Atlantic Ocean is Earths second-largest ocean, covering approximately one_fifth of its surface. ... Parapatry is a type of speciation where the ranges of two species abut but do not overlap. ... For other meanings of Pacific, see Pacific (disambiguation). ... Sympatry is one of three theoretical models for the phenomenon of speciation. ... An important concept in evolutionary biology, reproductive isolation is a category of mechanisms that prevent two or more populations from exchanging genes. ...

History and Folklore

In his atheist manifesto, the God Delusion, Richard Dawkins cites the Manx Shearwater in discussing the Argument from Personal 'Experience' (p87): The God Delusion is a non-fiction book by British ethologist and atheist Richard Dawkins that is critical of religion. ... Clinton Richard Dawkins (born March 26, 1941) is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and popular science writer who holds the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. ...

One of the cleverer and more mature of my undergradtuate contemporaries, who was deeply religious, went camping in the Scottish isles. In the middle of the night he and his girlfriend were woken in their tent by the voice of the devil, Satan himself; there could be no possible doubt: the voice was in every sense diabolical. My friend would never forget this horrifying experience, and it was one of the factors that later drove him to be ordained. My youthful self was impressed by this story, and recounted it to a gathering of zoologists relaxing in the Rose and Crown Inn, Oxford. Two of them happened to be experienced ornithologists, and they roared with laughter. 'Manx Shearwater!' they shouted in delighted chorus. One of then added that the diabolical shrieks and cackles of this species have earned it, in various parts of the world and various languages, the local nickname 'Devil Bird'. Many people believe in God because they believe they have seen a vision of him...

References

• Alcover, Josep Antoni (2001): Nous avenços en el coneixement dels ocells fòssils de les Balears. Anuari Ornitològic de les Balears 16: 3-13. [Article in Catalan, English abstract] PDF fulltext

• Austin, Jeremy J. (1996): Molecular Phylogenetics of Puffinus Shearwaters: Preliminary Evidence from Mitochondrial Cytochrome b Gene Sequences. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 6(1): 77–88. DOI:10.1006/mpev.1996.0060 (HTML abstract)

• BirdLife International (2004). Puffinus puffinus. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 12 May 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern

• Bull, John L.; Farrand, John Jr.; Rayfield, Susan & National Audubon Society (1977): The Audubon Society field guide to North American birds, Eastern Region. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. ISBN 0-394-41405-5

• Heidrich, Petra; Amengual, José F. & Wink, Michael (1998): Phylogenetic relationships in Mediterranean and North Atlantic shearwaters (Aves: Procellariidae) based on nucleotide sequences of mtDNA. Biochemical Systematics and Ecology 26(2): 145–170. DOI:10.1016/S0305-1978(97)00085-9 PDF fulltext

• Holdaway, Richard N; Worthy, Trevor H. & Tennyson, Alan J. D. (2001): A working list of breeding bird species of the New Zealand region at first human contact. New Zealand Journal of Zoology 28(2): 119-187. PDF fulltext

• Sangster, George; Knox, Alan G.; Helbig, Andreas J. & Parkin, David T. (2002): Taxonomic recommendations for European birds. Ibis 144(1): 153–159. DOI:10.1046/j.0019-1019.2001.00026.x PDF fulltext

A digital object identifier (or DOI) is a standard for persistently identifying a piece of intellectual property on a digital network and associating it with related data, the metadata, in a structured extensible way. ... The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (also known as the IUCN Red List and Red Data List), created in 1963, is the worlds most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of plant and animal species and can be found here. ... The World Conservation Union or International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) is an international organization dedicated to natural resource conservation. ... A digital object identifier (or DOI) is a standard for persistently identifying a piece of intellectual property on a digital network and associating it with related data, the metadata, in a structured extensible way. ... Ibis (ISSN print 0019-1019; online 1474-919X), subtitled the International Journal of Avian Science, is the peer-reviewed scientific journal of the British Ornithologists Union. ... A digital object identifier (or DOI) is a standard for persistently identifying a piece of intellectual property on a digital network and associating it with related data, the metadata, in a structured extensible way. ...

External links

• for the Copeland bird ringed in 1953:
  • Copeland Bird Observatory
  • BBC News
• for the Bardsey Island bird ringed in 1957:
  • Bardsey Island Bird Observatory
  • BBC News
  • Wildlife Britain news
• A recording of the call