| Great Auk | |
|---|---|
 summer plumage (left) and winter plumage (right) | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Charadriiformes |
| Family: | Alcidae |
| Genus: | Pinguinus |
| Species: | Pinguinus impennis |
The Great Auk is a species of extinct flightless bird that used to breed in colonies in the northern Atlantic Ocean and went extinct due to overhunting. The last individual was killed in 1844. The Great Auk's closest living relative is the Razorbill (Alca torda).
It is not closely related to the birds now known as penguins, which were discovered later and so named by sailors because of their physical resemblance to the Great Auk.
Description[]
With its 75-85 cm length and 5 kg weight, the Great Auk was the largest member of the order Charadriiformes. The large black bill bore eight or more transverse grooves and it had black feet and claws. In its breeding plumage, it features a white patch over each eye, black back and head, and a white front. While in the wintering plumage, the white patch between the bill and eye is smaller and the whites also are present in the cheeks. Both plumages feature white wingtips in the secondaries.
Behavior[]
They were excellent swimmers, using their wings to swim underwater. Their main food was fish, usually between 12 and 20 cm, but occasionally up to half the bird's own length; based on remains associated with Great Auk bones on Funk Island and ecological and morphological considerations, it seems that Atlantic menhaden and capelin were favored prey items. Great Auks walked slowly and sometimes used their wings to help them traverse rough terrain. They had few natural predators, mainly large marine mammals and birds of prey, and had no innate fear of humans. Their flightlessness and awkwardness on land compounded their vulnerability to humans, who hunted them for food, feathers, and also for specimen collection for museums and private collections.
The Great Auk laid only one egg each year, which it incubated on bare ground, with hatching in June. The eggs were yellowish white to light ochre with a varying pattern of black, brown or greyish spots and lines which often congregated on the large end, and quite large (110-140 x 70-84 mm).
Distribution and Habitat[]
The Great Auk was found in great numbers on islands off eastern Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Ireland and Great Britain, but it was eventually hunted to extinction. It inhabited cold coastal waters.
Extinction[]
The Great Auk was hunted on a significant scale for food, eggs and down from at least the 8th century. Previous to that, hunting by local natives can be documented from Late Stone Age Scandinavia and Eastern North America, and from early 5th century AD Labrador where the bird only seems to have occurred as a straggler. A person buried at the Maritime Archaic site at Port au Choix, Newfoundland, dating to about 2000 BC, seems to have been interred clothed in a suit made from more than 200 Great Auk skins, with the heads left attached as decoration. Nonetheless, opportunistic hunting by natives did not endanger the species as a whole.
The little ice age may have reduced their numbers, but massive exploitation for their down eventually reduced the population to very few birds. Specimens of the Great Auk and its eggs became collectable and highly prized, and collecting contributed to the demise of the species. Today about 80 preserved skins and approximately 70 eggs are known to exist. The last pair, found incubating an egg, were killed on 3 July 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.