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Great auk in winter plumage (No. 24, one of four in existence) and the internal organs of the last two great auks, Natural History Museum of Denmark Following the bird's extinction, remains of the great auk increased dramatically in value, and auctions of specimens created intense interest in Victorian Britain, where 15 specimens are now ...
The rough surf around the island usually made it inaccessible to humans, and one of the last refuges for the flightless bird the great auk (which was also called "garefowl" — "geirfugl" in Icelandic). In a volcanic eruption in 1830 this rock submerged. The surviving great auks moved to a nearby island called Eldey and were wiped out by humans ...
' Great Auk Stack '), [2] or Freykja (), [citation needed] is a small, uninhabited island in the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago. [1] [2] Geirfuglasker is located approximately 30 kilometres (19 mi) off Iceland's southwestern coast. [1] [2] The island hosted one of the last known colony of great auks, which thrived given its inaccessibility to humans.
Pinguinus alfrednewtoni is an extinct species of auk related to the great auk known from fossils that were discovered in the Pliocene Yorktown Formation of North Carolina.Like the great auk, it was a large flightless diving bird that used its wings to propel itself forward underwater.
Mounted great auk, Natural History Museum, London. On Stac an Armin, in July, 1840, the last great auk (Pinguinus impennis) seen in Britain [17] was caught and killed. A then 75-year-old inhabitant of St Kilda told Henry Evans, a frequent visitor to the archipelago, that he and his father-in-law with another man had caught a "garefowl ...
Eldey, and the fate of the great auk, are mentioned in The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby by Charles Kingsley. Eldey is described in detail in The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert. The Great Auk, a novel by Allan W. Eckert, c. 1963, Library of Congress Cat.#63-18215
Archaeologists identified skeletons found in an ancient tomb as the royal lineage of Alexander the Great, including his father and son, dating back 2,300 years.
The great auk went extinct in the 1800s due to overhunting by humans for food. The last two known great auks lived on an island near Iceland and were clubbed to death by sailors. There have been no known sightings since. [100] The great auk has been identified as a good candidate for de-extinction by Revive and Restore, a non-profit organization.