At 75 centimetres, the flightless Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis) was the largest of the auks. It was hunted for food and down for mattresses from at least the 8th century. It is classified as the only species in the genusPinguinus.
The Great Auk was once to be found in great numbers on islands off eastern Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Ireland and Britain, but it was eventually hunted to extinction. The last pair was killed July 3, 1844 on the island of Eldey off Iceland, though a later sighting was claimed of a live individual in 1852 off the Newfoundland Banks in Canada.
They were excellent swimmers, using their wings to swim underwater. Unlike other auks, however, the Great Auk could not fly, which is what made it so vulnerable to humans. The Great Auk laid only one egg each year.
One theory connects the Great Auk with the origin of the word penguin, which may have come from the Welsh phrase pen gwyn, meaning "white head", referring originally to the Great Auk. (Although the head of the Great Auk is not in fact white, there is a white patch behind the beak.) Later, when explorers discovered apparently similar birds in the southern hemisphere, what we now call penguins, the term was supposedly transferred to them. An alternative theory suggests that the word penguin comes from the Latinpinguis meaning "fat", referring to the plump appearance of the bird.
Analysis of skeletal measurements revealed that the genera of flightless Alcidae (Pinguinus, Mancalla, Praemancalla, and Alcodes) were characterized by relatively short distal wing elements and dorsoventral flattening of all major wing elements, in combination with relatively large core and pelvic dimensions.
Although the flightless condition of Pinguinus was noted frequently by early naturalists, particularly with respect to its vulnerability to hunters on land, the anatomical correlates of flightlessness in the Great Auk have received relatively little attention.
Pinguinus is judged to be closely related to the Razorbill (Alca torda) The Auk 105: 681-698.
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