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Images of the great auk have been found in bone necklaces. [ 21 ] : 36 A person buried at the Maritime Archaic site at Port au Choix , Newfoundland , dating to about 2000 BC, was found surrounded by more than 200 great auk beaks, which are believed to have been part of a suit made from their skins, with the heads left attached as decoration. [ 49 ]
Auks are superficially similar to penguins, having black-and-white colours, upright posture, and some of their habits.Nevertheless, they are not closely related to penguins, but rather are believed to be an example of moderate convergent evolution.
The name penguin was first used in the late 16th century for the Great Auk (pictured here) and was later applied to Southern Hemisphere birds due to their resemblance, though they are unrelated. [10] The word penguin first appears in literature at the end of the 16th century as a synonym for the great auk. [11]
A taxidermized Great Auk The great auk (or, as it has been nicknamed, the “Penguin of the North”) was a flightless marine bird that inhabited the North Atlantic Ocean and its nearby islands. Its range once extended to the continental United States and Europe. [ 21 ]
The great auk was a large flightless bird that lived in the Northern Hemisphere. It had a large, intricately grooved beak. When the first settlers arrived in Iceland, the auk population was probably in the millions. However, the settlers found the auks to be “very good and nourishing meat.”
The common murre or common guillemot (Uria aalge) is a large auk. It has a circumpolar distribution, occurring in low-Arctic and boreal waters in the North Atlantic and North Pacific. It spends most of its time at sea, only coming to land to breed on rocky cliff shores or islands. Common murres are fast in direct flight but are not very agile.
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It is the closest living relative of the extinct great auk (Pinguinus impennis). [4] Historically, it has also been known as "auk", [5] "razor-billed auk" [6] and "lesser auk". [7] Razorbills are primarily black with a white underside. The male and female are identical in plumage; however, males are generally larger than females.