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The great auk (Pinguinus impennis), also known as the penguin or garefowl, is a species of flightless alcid that first appeared around 400,000 years ago and became extinct in the mid-19th century. It was the only modern species in the genus Pinguinus.
For example, great auks, whose habit of crowding together on rocks and beaches made them especially easy to hunt, had been driven to extinction early in the century. During one week in the spring of 1897, nature author Florence Merriam claimed to have seen 2,600 robins for sale in one market stall in Washington alone. By the start of the 20th ...
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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.
The family contains 25 extant or recently extinct species that are divided into 11 genera. Auks are found throughout the Northern Hemisphere. [1] [2] Apart from the extinct great auk, all auks can fly, and are excellent swimmers and divers (appearing to "fly" in water), but their walking appears clumsy.
The auks are a family of seabirds related to the gulls and terns which contains several genera. The common murre is placed in the guillemot (murre) genus Uria (Brisson, 1760), which it shares with the thick-billed murre or Brunnich's guillemot, U. lomvia. These species, together with the razorbill, little auk and the extinct great auk make up ...
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Since the extinction of the great auk in the mid-19th century, the murres are the largest living members of the Alcidae. [9] The thick-billed murre and the closely related common guillemot (or common murre, U. aalge) are similarly sized, but the thick-billed still bests the other species in both average and maximum size. The thick-billed murre ...