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The "Great Auk, Northern Penguin, or Gair-Fowl", wood engraving by Thomas Bewick in A History of British Birds, 1804 [a] The great auk was one of the 4,400 animal species formally described by Carl Linnaeus in his eighteenth-century work Systema Naturae, in which it was given the binomial Alca impennis. [15]
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 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 word penguin first appears in literature at the end of the 16th century as a synonym for the great auk. [11] When European explorers discovered what are today known as penguins in the Southern Hemisphere, they noticed their similar appearance to the great auk of the Northern Hemisphere and named them after this bird, although they are not ...
Even though they live in large colonies, emperor penguins are the least common Antarctic penguins. Scientists estimate anywhere from 265,000 to 278,000 breeding pairs are left in the wild.
During summer, great auk plumage showed a white patch over each eye. During winter, the great auk lost these patches, instead developing a white band stretching between the eyes. The wings were only 15 cm (6 in) long, rendering the bird flightless. Instead, the great auk was a powerful swimmer, a trait that it used in hunting.
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.
The "handsome" emperor penguin, named Gus, made a pitstop on Ocean Beach in Denmark, a town in Western Australia on Nov. 1, according to the Government of Western Australia's Department of ...