The Day in History: Last Pair of Great Auks Killed (1844) The Day in History: Last Pair of Great Auks Killed (1844) The Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis, formerly Alca impennis) is an extinct bird. It was the only species in the genus Pinguinus, flightless giant auks from the Atlantic, to survive until recent times, but is extinct today. It was also known as garefowl (from the Old Norse geirfugl, meaning "spear-bird", a reference to the shape of its beak), or penguin (see etymology below). In the past, 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. Remains found in Floridan middens suggest that at least occasionally, birds ventured that far south in winter as recently as in the 14th century (Weigel 1958, Brodkorb 1960).

Characteristics Mounted specimen, Natural History Museum, LondonStanding about 75 centimetres or 30-34 inches high and weighing around 5 kg (Livezey 1988), the flightless Great Auk was the largest of the auks. It had white and glossy black feathers. The longest wing feathers were only 4 inches long. Its feet and claws were black. The webbed skin between the toes was brown/black. The beak was black with white transverse grooves. There was an area of white feathers on both sides of the head between the beak and each eye. It had a reddish/brown iris. Juvenile birds had less prominent grooves in their beaks and had mottled white and black necks. Ecology 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 (Olson et al. 1979).

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. Egg, Ipswich Museum, Suffolk 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). ExtinctionThe 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 (Greenway 1967), and from early 5th century AD Labrador (Jordan & Olson 1982) 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 (Tuck 1976). The little ice age may have reduced their numbers, but massive exploitation for their down eventually reduced the population. Specimens of the Great Auk and its eggs became collectible and highly prized, and collecting of the eggs contributed to the demise of the species. On Stac an Armin, St Kilda, Scotland, in July, 1840, the last great auk seen in the British Isles was killed by two St Kildans residents. Haswell-Smith claims that this was because they thought it was a witch. The last population lived on an island of Geirfuglasker ("The Great Auk Rock") off Iceland. The island was a volcanic rock surrounded by cliffs, which made it inaccessible to humans, but in 1830 this rock submerged and the birds moved to a nearby island of Eldey which was accessible from a single side.

The last pair, found incubating an egg, were killed there on 3 July 1844 by Jon Brandsson and Sigurdr Islefsson, though a later claim of a live individual sighted in 1852 on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland is accepted by the IUCN (BirdLife International 2004). Today, around 75 eggs of the Great Auk remain in museum collections, and about again this number of skins. While literally thousands of isolated bones have been collected from 19th century Funk Island to Neolithic middens, only a minute number of complete skeletons exist (Luther 1996). Systematics Analysis of mtDNA sequences (Moum et al 2002) have confirmed morphological and biogeographical studies in regarding the razorbill as the Great Auk's closest living relative. Interestingly, they were also closely related to the dovekie (little auk), which underwent a radically different evolution compared to Pinguinus. The entire lineage seems to have evolved in the North Atlantic. Due to the outward similarity to the razorbill (apart from flightlessness and size), the Great Auk was often placed in the genus Alca.

However, the fossil record (Pinguinus alfrednewtoni from the Early Pliocene Yorktown Formation of the Lee Creek Mine, USA) and molecular evidence demonstrate that the three genera, while still closely related, diverged soon after their common ancestor had spread to the coasts of the Atlantic. As mascotThe Great Auk is a mascot to Archmere Academy in Claymont, Delaware, USA, Sir Sandford Fleming college in Ontario, Canada, and the Adelaide University Choral Society (AUCS), Australia. It is also the mascot of the Knowledge Masters educational competition. The Auk, the scientific journal of the American Ornithologists' Union, is named after this bird. According to Homer Hickam's memoir Rocket Boys and its subsequent film production October Sky the early rockets he and his friends built were named "Auk" along with a sequential numeration as an obvious display of irony. In LiteratureThe Great Auk is the subject of a novel, The Last Great Auk, by Allen Eckert. This novel tells about the events leading to extinction of the Great Auk, as seen from the perspective of the Great Auk that winds up being the last one alive.

A Great Auk (presumably stuffed) appears in the opera The Rake's Progress by Igor Stravinsky with libretto by W.H.Auden and Chester Kallman among the possessions of Baba the Turk. In the novel adaptation of "The Wicker Man" by Robin Hardy & Anthony Shaffer, but not the film, the (fictitious) Summerisle is revealed to be home to a surviving colony of Great Auks. Source: encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com Extinct Animals – Great Auk – Blue Line Order: Charadriiformes Family: Alcidae When did it become extinct? The last pair of great auks was killed in 1844, although there was a later sighting of the bird in 1852 on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland . Where did it live? The great auk was a bird of the Northern Atlantic , frequenting islands off the coast of Canada, Greenland, Iceland, and northern Europe. In the roll call of recently extinct animals there is a long list of bird species, and flightless birds feature very prominently—hit hard by the spread of humans to the far reaches of the globe.

Often, these birds were giants of their kind, and the great auk, as its name suggests, was no exception. The Northern Hemisphere’s version of the penguin, the great auk was a large bird that stood around 75 cm high and weighed about 5 kg when fully grown. Like the other auk species, the great auk had glossy black plumage on its back and head, while its underside was white. In front of each eye was a white patch of plumage. Although the wings of the great auk were rather short and stubby, they were used to great effect underwater, where they would whirr away to propel the animal forward very rapidly through this dense medium. Like all auks and the unrelated penguins, the great auk was very maneuverable underwater, and it would pursue shoals of fi sh at high speed, seizing unlucky individuals in its beak. From remains of its food that have been found off the coast of Newfoundland, we know that the great auk hunted fi sh that were up to about 20 cm long, including such species as the Atlantic menhaden and the capelin.

The grace and ease with which the great auk sliced through the water was not reflected in the way it moved about on land. It was built for swimming, and on land it was a very cumbersome animal, waddling around in the same way as the larger penguin species. As its feet were positioned far back on its body, it shuffled around and may have resorted to hops or sliding on its belly to overcome small obstacles. The ungainliness of the great auk on land was undoubtedly one of its downfalls because it could be caught with such ease. Birds, no matter how well adapted they are to an aquatic existence, are always tied to the land. They need to return to land to lay their eggs and rear their young. During the breeding season, the great auks made use of low-lying islands to mate and lay their eggs. The female great auk only laid one egg per season, directly onto the bare rock. The egg was quite a specimen, weighing around 330 g. Every egg in the breeding colony was patterned slightly differently so that parents could easily recognize their own developing youngster.

The parents probably fed the hatchling on regurgitated fi sh collected during frequent fishing trips, and on this diet rich in proteins and fats, the young grew quickly. They had to, as the summer in these northern climes is very short indeed, and if the young hadn’t grown suffi ciently to take to the sea when the harsh conditions of winter descended, they would have perished. Life for the great auk was tough, and it got a whole lot tougher when they caught the attention of humans. Europeans soon realized the great auk represented a treasure trove of oil, meat, and feathers. Their awkwardness on land coupled with an obligation to form dense breeding colonies on low-lying islands made them easy pickings for Atlantic mariners. Sailors armed with clubs would land on the breeding islands and run amok through the nesting birds, dispatching them with blows to the head. There are stories of great auks being herded up the gangplanks of waiting ships and being driven into crudely constructed stone pens to make the slaughter even easier. Once killed, the birds were sometimes doused in boiling water to ease the removal of their feathers. The plucked bodies were then skinned and processed for their oil and meat.

The oil was stored and taken back to the cities of Europe, where it was used as lamp fuel, whereas the feathers and down from the bird were used to stuff pillows. The slaughter was relentless, and as breeding pairs of the great auk could only produce one egg per year, the species was doomed. It is known that the populations of great auk off the coast of Norway were extinct by 1300. By 1800, the last large stronghold of this bird, Funk Island , was targeted by hunters, and the great auk was effectively on a headlong course for extinction. The island of Geirfuglasker , off the coast of Iceland, was the last real refuge for this bird as it was inaccessible; however, the island was inundated with water during a volcanic eruption and an earthquake. The birds that survived fled to the island of Eldey , near the tip of the Reykjanes Peninsula , Iceland, and it was here that the last breeding pair was killed on July 3, 1844, by two Icelanders. This last pair of great auks was killed while brooding an egg, and this, the last egg laid by the great auk, was smashed.

Lonely individuals of the great auk may have scoured the North Atlantic looking for others of their kind as one was apparently spotted around the Grand Banks in 1852, but their searches were in vain, and they, too, eventually went the same way as the rest of their species. • The great auk was just one species of a number of giant, flightless auks that inhabited the Atlantic. All of them, except the great auk, became extinct several thousand years ago. • The great auk’s similarity in both appearance and lifestyle to the penguins of the Southern Hemisphere is a very good example of convergent evolution, the phenomenon whereby two unrelated species come to resemble each other as a result of having to adapt to similar environments. • Bones from archaeological sites in Florida suggest that the great auk may have migrated south over the winter to escape the worst of the weather. • The museums of the world hold many great auk remains. There are numerous skins— many of which have been used to create stuff ed reconstructions—eggs, and bones. However, complete skeletons of the great auk are very rare, with only a few known to exist.

The eyes and the internal organs from the two last known great auks were removed and preserved in formaldehyde. These poignant reminders of the extinction of this fascinating animal can be seen in the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark. Further Reading: Olson, S. L., C. C. Swift, and C. Mokhiber. “An Attempt to Determine the Prey of the Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis).” Auk 96 (1979): 790–92; Fuller, E. The Great Auk. New York: Abrams, 1999. Extinct Birds - Aves - Ornithology - Conservation - Birding in India Extinct Birds - Ornithology Haast's Eagle attacking New Zealand Moa Since 1600, over 100 species of birds have become extinct, and this rate of extinction seems to be increasing. The situation is exemplified by Hawaii, where 30% of all now-extinct species originally lived. Other areas, such as Guam, have also been hard hit; Guam has lost over 60% of its native species in the last 30 years, many of them to imported snakes.

There are today about 10,000 species of birds , and 1186 of them are considered to be under threat of extinction. Island species in general, and flightless island species in particular are most at risk. The disproportionate number of rails in the list reflects the tendency of that family to lose the ability to fly when geographically isolated. List of extinct species: Ratites Aepyornis (Aepyornis maximus) Moa (Dinornithiformes) Large flightless birds in New Zealand. They were probably already extinct in 1642 when Europeans landed there. The extinction of the moa and its main predator, the Harpagornis, is attributed to the arrival of human settlers around 1000 AD. Very early European arrivals, ca 1830-40, described seeing birds that might have been the last of the moa but the sightings have never been reliably confirmed. New Zealand has no significant indigenous mammal life. The entire animal ecology consisted of birds, with the moa filling the niche of deer or cattle, and the harpagornis filling the niche of the wolf or tiger. There were ten species.

Amongst them were Slender Moa (Dinornis robustus), Great Broad-billed Moa (Euryapteryx gravis) and Lesser Megalapteryx, (Megalapteryx didinus). It has been long suspected that the species of moa described as Euryapteryx curtus / E. exilis, E. huttonii/ E. crassus, and Pachyornis septentrionalis / P. mappini constituted males and females, respectively. This has been confirmed by analysis for sex-specific genetic markers of DNA extracted from bone material. More interestingly, the former three species of Dinornis: D. giganteus = robustus, D. novaezealandiae and D. struthioides have turned out to be males (struthioides) and females of only two species, one each formerly occurring on New Zealands North Island (D. novaezealandiae) and South Island (D. robustus). Moa females were larger than males, being up to 150% of the male's size and 280% of their weight.

This phenomenon - reverse size dimorphism, is not uncommon amongst ratites, being most pronounced in moa and kiwis. On a side note, the plural form of moa is also moa, as Maori words do not feature plurals. King Island Emu (Dromaius ater) - Australia 1850 Kangaroo Island Emu (Dromaius baudinianus) - Australia 1827 Ducks, geese and swans Korean Crested Shelduck (Tadorna cristata) Officially critically endangered due to recent unconfirmed reports. Last confirmed record in 1964. Rï¿½union Shelduck (Alopochen kervazoi) - Mascarenes 1674 Mauritian Shelduck (Alopochen mauritianus) - Mascarenes 1698 Amsterdam Island Duck (Anas marecula) - Amsterdam Island 1800 Mauritian Duck (Anas theodori) - Mascarenes 1710 Pink-headed Duck (Netta caryophyllacea). Officially critically endangered, but probably extinct.

The only area in which it might reasonably still exist is Northern Myanmar due to its remoteness. Reports of Pink-headed Duck continue to be received from this area, but searches have been inconclusive. Madagascar Pochard (Aythya innotata) Officially critically endangered, but probably extinct: only one, a semi-captive bird at Antananarivo Botanic Gardens, seen alive since 1991, this bird dying in 1992. Labrador Duck (Camptorhynchus labradorius). This eider-like sea duck was never very common. Although it has been hunted for food, it probably died out because of decline of mussels and shellfish due to pollution. The last one was seen at Elmira, New York, in 1878. Auckland Islands Merganser (Mergus australis) - Auckland Islands 1902 Nēnē-nui (Branta hylobadistes) Branta (new species), Hawaiian Giant Goose Chendytes lawi, flightless diving duck, common to the California Coast, California Channel Islands, and possibly southern Oregon. Lived in the Pleistocene and survived into the Holocene.

Appears to have gone extinct about 3000 BP. Remains found in fossil deposits and in early archeological sites. Probably driven to extinction by hunting and loss of habitat. Quails and relatives Heath Hen (Tympanuchus cupido cupido), a subspecies of the Greater Prairie-Chicken New Zealand Quail (Coturnix novaezelandiae) - New Zealand, 1875 Himalayan Quail (Ophrysia superciliosa). Officially critically endangered. Not recorded with certainty since 1876, but thorough surveys are still required, and there is a recent set of possible (though unlikely) sightings around Nainital (India) in 2003. A little-known native name from western Nepal probably refers to this bird, but for various reasons, no survey for Ophrysia has ever been conducted in that country, nor is it generally assumed to occur there (due to the native name being overlooked). Grebes Colombian Grebe (Podiceps andinus) Last seen in Colombia in 1977. Atitlan Grebe (Podilymbus gigas) Last seen in Guatemala in 1986.

Petrels St Helena Bulwer's Petrel (Bulweria bifax) - St Helena 1550 St Helena Gadfly Petrel (Pterodroma rupinarum) - St Helena 1550 Guadalupe Storm Petrel (Oceanodroma macrodacyla) Cormorants and related birds New Zealand Little Bittern (Ixobrychus novazelandiae) - New Zealand 1900 Rï¿½union Night Heron (Nycticorax duboisi) - Mascarenes 1674 Mauritius Night Heron (Nycticorax mauritianus) - Mascarenes 1700 Rodrigues Night Heron (Nycticorax megacephalus) - Mascarenes 1761 Rï¿½union Flightless Ibis (Threskiornis solitarius) - Mascarenes 1750. Old descriptions match a flightless Sacred Ibis quite well. Apteribis, a small flightless ibis from the Hawaiian Islands.

Bird of prey Argentavis (Argentavis magnificens) Guadalupe Caracara (Polyborus lutosus) Haast's Eagle (Harpagornis moorei). Giant eagle (up to 2.6m wingspan) endemic to New Zealand. Extinct approximately 1400 A.D. due to habitat loss and the extinction of its large flightless bird (Moa) prey following human occupation. Flexiraptor (Pengana robertbolesi), an Australian caracara-like bird that lived 23-16 million years ago in Queensland.

Rails Chatham Islands Rail (Rallus modestus) Wake Island Rail (Rallus wakensis) Tahitian Red-billed Rail (Rallus pacificus) Ascension Island Rail (Atlantisia elpenor) Kusaie Island Crake (Porzana monasa) Hawaiian Rail (Porzana sandwichensis) Samoan Wood Rail (Gallinula pacifica) Lord Howe Swamphen (Porphyrio albus) Mauritius Red Hen (Aphanapteryx bonasia) Leguat's Gelinote (Aphanapteryx leguatz) White-winged Sandpiper (Prosobonia leucoptera) Eskimo Curlew (Numenius borealis) Great Auk (Alca impennis) or (Pinguinus impennis). At 75 centimeters, the flightless Great Auk was the largest of the auks. It was hunted to extinction for food and down for mattresses. The last pair were killed July 3, 1844. Pigeons and Dodos Dodo Liverpool Pigeon (Caloenas maculata).

Also known as the Spotted Green Pigeon, the only specimen has been in Liverpool Museum since 1851, and was probably collected on a Pacific island for Edward Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby. Rodrigues Pigeon (Columba rodericana) Bonin Wood Pigeon (Columba versicolor) Mauritius Blue Pigeon (Alectroenas nitidissima) Extinct in 19th century. Forster's Dove of Tanna (Gallicolumba ferruginea) Marquesas Fruit Pigeon (Ptilinopus mercierii) Choiseul Crested Pigeon (Microgoura meeki) Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius). The passenger pigeon was once probably the most common bird in the world. It was hunted close to extinction for food and sport in the late 19th century. The last one died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. Dodo (Raphus cucullatus), called Didus ineptus by Linnaeus. A meter-high flightless bird on Mauritius.

Its forest habitat was lost when Dutch settlers moved to the island and the dodo's nests were destroyed by the rats, pigs, and cats the Dutch brought with them. The last specimen was killed in 1681, only 80 years after the arrival of the new predators. Of the 45 bird species originally found on Mauritius, 24 are now extinct. Rodrigues Solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria). Last seen c.1730. Parrots Norfolk Island Kaka (Nestor productus) Paradise Parrot (Psephotus pulcherrimus) Rodrigues Little Owl (Athene murivora) Laughing Owl (Sceloglaux albifacies) - New Zealand Nightjars Jamaica Least Pauraque (Siphonorhis americanus) Hummingbirds Brace's Emerald (Chlorostilbon bracei) - Bahamas 1900 Gould's Emerald (Chlorostilbon elegans) - Jamaica & Bahamas 1900 Kingfishers and related birds Ryukyu Kingfisher (Halcyon miyakoensis). - a sub-species of Micronesian Kingfisher (Halycon cinnamomina).

St Helena Hoopoe (Upupa antaois) - St Helena 1550 Woodpeckers Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) This species was believed to be extinct since 1987, when the last positive sighting was made in Cuba. However, at least one living male was rediscovered in Arkansas in 2004 and 2005. Imperial Woodpecker (Campephilus imperialis) This 60-centimeter-long woodpecker is officially listed as critically endangered and is believed to now be extinct. Passerines Stephens Island Wren (Xenicus lyalli) New Zealand Bush Wren (Xenicus longipes) Bonin Islands Thrush (Zoothera terrestris) Bay Thrush (Turdus ulietensis) - Society Islands 1774-1850. A completely mysterious bird from Raiatea, now only known from a painting and some descriptions of a (now lost) specimen. Its taxonomic position is unresolvable, although for biogeographic reasons and because of the surviving material, it possibly was a honeyeater.

However, with the discovery of fossils of the prehistorically extinct starling Aplonis diluvialis on neighboring Huahine, it seems more likely that this bird also belonged into this genus. Grand Cayman Thrush (Turdus ravidus) Kittlitz's Thrush (Zoothera terrestis) Chatham Island Fernbird (Bowdleria rufescens) Aldabran Brush Warbler (Nesillas aldabranus) Lord Howe Gerygone (Gerygone insularis) Guam Flycatcher (Myiagra freycineti) Maupiti Monarch (Pomarea pomerea) - Society Islands 1850 South Island Piopio (Turnagra capensis) North Island Piopio (Turnagra tanagra) Lord Howe Island White-eye (Zosterops strenua) Kioea (Chaetoptila angustipluma) On this day in 1844, the last Great Auk, a... • Bird Cams Puffin News On this day in 1844, the last Great Auk, a relative of puffins and razorbills, was killed on an island off the coast of Iceland.

The Great Auk was a flightless bird, measuring between 30 and 33 inches high with wings of only 6 inches in length. It was a member of the Alcid family, with the Razorbill being its closest living relative. Black-backed with a white belly, it developed a white patch over the eye during breeding season. Its bill was around 4 inches long with deep grooves. At one time, Great Auks were present all over the North Atlantic, ranging from Iceland, Greenland and Norway to New England and northern Spain. They spent most of their time at sea, but came to land during breeding season. They bred on isolated, rocky islands with ledges or reefs, as they could not fly ashore. However, they were amazing swimmers: we know that they were able to dive as deep as 249 feet, and it has been claimed that they were able to dive up to a kilometer deep (3,300 feet). Humans have hunted the Great Auk for over 100,000 years. With few natural predators, the Auk had no innate fear of people.

The birds were hunted for their use as food (as were their eggs, which were almost 5 inches long), but more aggressively for their down, which was used to make pillows. By the mid-16th century, nesting colonies along the European Atlantic coast had almost completely disappeared. In 1553, the Great Auk received its first official protection, and by 1792, it was illegal to hunt them for their feathers in Britain (though they could still be hunted as fishing bait). As the Great Auk became more and more rare, specimens of the bird and its eggs became prized by wealthy Europeans. Ironically, this drive contributed to the demise of the species. Three men hired by a rich merchant who wanted specimens found the last pair of Auks incubating their egg on the last Great Auk breeding colony, on the Icelandic island of Eldey, on 3 July 1844. Two of them strangled the birds while the third smashed the egg with his boot.

One of the men, Sigurður Ísleifsson, describes the event as follows: “The rocks were covered with blackbirds [referring to Guillemots] and there were the Geirfugles … They walked slowly. Jón Brandsson crept up with his arms open. The bird that Jón got went into a corner but [mine] was going to the edge of the cliff. [I] caught it close to the edge – a precipice many fathoms deep. The black birds were flying off. I took him by the neck and he flapped his wings. He made no cry. I strangled him.” 1000+ images about Great Auk on Pinterest | Natural history museum, Iceland and Armin Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis). Taxidermy Specimen Number 8. Extinct Circa 1850. Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, Scotland. See More Great Auk - Pictures and facts - Birds @ thewebsiteofeverything.com Fish Great Auk The Great Auk was 75 to 85 centimetres tall and weighed around 5 kilograms , making it the largest member of the alcid family.

It had a black back and a white belly. The black beak was heavy and hooked with grooves etched into its surface. During the breeding season, the Great Auk had a white patch over each eye. After the breeding season, the auk lost this patch, instead developing a white band stretching between the eyes. The wings were 15 centimetres long, rendering the bird flightless. Instead, the auk was a powerful swimmer, a trait that it utilized in hunting. Its favorite prey were fish, including Atlantic Menhaden and Capelin, and crustaceans. Although agile in the water, it was clumsy on land. Its main predators were Orcas, White-tailed Eagles, Polar Bears, and humans. Great Auk pairs mated for life. They nested in extremely dense and social colonies, laying one egg on bare rock. The egg was white with variable brown streaking. Both parents incubated for about six weeks before their young h Picture of the Great Auk has been licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike .

Original source: From geograph.org.uk Author: Mike PenningtonCamera location The Great Auk is classified as Extinct (EX), there is no reasonable doubt that the last individual has died. Great AukPinguinus impennis Order CHARADRIIFORMES – Family ALCIDAE Issue No. 260 Authors: Montevecchi, William A., and David A. Kirk * Articles * Multimedia * References Courtesy Preview This Introductory article that you are viewing is a courtesy preview of the full life history account of this species. The remaining articles (Distribution, Habitat, Behavior, etc. More A map showing the range of the Great Auk, with the coasts of North America and Europe forming two boundaries, a line stretching from New England to northern Portugal the southern boundary, and the northern boundary wrapping around the southern shore of Greenland. More Great Auk Wireless, Broadband Wireless Internet Provider for Vermont, and New Hampshire. More the Great Auk" is live at 10000birds.com. Check it out. Add to Memories Share this! * 1 comment * Leave a comment December 4th, 2007 - Snowbirds!

12/4/07 02:21 pmAdd to Memories Share this! aukIt snowed over the weekend, but it was stealth snow that fell by night. More as, the great auk, or northern penguin (Alca impennis), the Labrador auk, or puffin (Fratercula Arctica). They had never seen a bird like it. It was small, but it looked exactly like the picture of the great auk in Pa's big green book, The Wonders of the Animal World. More The Great Auk, Pinguinus impennis, formerly of the genus Alca) is a bird that became extinct in the mid-19th century. It was the only species in the genus Pinguinus, a group which included several flightless giant auks from the Atlantic, to survive until modern times. It was also known as garefowl (from the Old Norse geirfugl, meaning "spear-bird", a reference to the shape of its beak), or penguin (before the birds known by that name today were so called).

More This review is from: The Great Auk (Paperback) I read The Great Auk more than twenty years ago when I was still in high school. I'm very happy to see the book has since been reissued. It's an naturalist adventure seen entirely from the perspective of the last great auk. It should be under Christmas trees all over the country. More Great auks bred in colonies on rocky islands off North Atlantic coasts; fossil remains have been found as far south as Florida, Spain, and Italy. Their bodies were about 30 in. (75 cm) long; the wings, used for swimming underwater, were less than 6 in. (15 cm) long. They stood erect on land and had a black back and head, a white front, and a large white spot between the eye and the black bill. Great auks were hunted to extinction for food and bait. More The great auk ranged across the North Atlantic, south of the Arctic Circle as far as New England and the British Isles. HABITAT Rocky coastlines and adjoining seas. Restricted to a few locations where the nesting sites could be reached without flying.

BEHAVIOR The great auk was the most dependent of the alcids on the ocean because, unlike its relatives, it had lost the power of flight. More Great AuksGreat Auks = *Extinct* Auks The Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis) is an extinct bird. It was the only species in the genus Pinguinus, flightless giant auks from the Atlantic, to survive until recent times, but is extinct today. It was also known as garefowl (from the Old Norse geirfugl), or penguin (see etymology below). More * Great auk (Pinguinus impennis), hand-coloured engraving by John James Audubon and … Great auk (Pinguinus impennis), hand-coloured engraving by John James Audubon and … * Mounted specimen of great auk (Pinguinus impennis) Mounted specimen of great auk (Pinguinus impennis) * Great auk (Pinguinus impennis). Great auk (Pinguinus impennis).

More The great auk, Pinguinus impennis, was a species of flightless seabird native to the North Atlantic, becoming extinct by 1844 due to over-hunting. Contents - * 1 Entymology * 2 Description * 2.1 Distribution * 2.2 Diet * 2. More The Great Auk, Knowledge Master of Ceremonies, has just one question for you! What book by C.S. Lewis consists of letters from a veteran devil to his novice nephew, Wormwood? and the answer is... More For more details, The Great Auk, Knowledge Master of Ceremonies, invites you to aukxamine the KMO's rules and procedures. Results and Recognition Separate results are prepared for each contest grade level - 5th, 6th, middle school, junior high, and high school. Preliminary results are compiled by 6 a.m. Mountain Time on the day after the official contest date. A summary of the results of the KMO is posted at this website two days after each event. More At 75 centimetres, the flightless Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis or Alca impennis) was the largest of the auks.

It was hunted for food and down for mattresses from at least the 8th century. The Great Auk was once to be found in great numbers on islands off eastern Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Ireland and Britain, but it was eventually hunted to extinction. The last pair was killed July 3 1844 on an island off Iceland. They were excellent swimmers, using their wings to swim underwater. More A prehistoric form of great auk, Pinguinus alfrednewwni, is recorded from the Pliocene (5.2 to 1.64 million years ago) and other Pliocene flightless diving birds had wings even more penguin-like than those of the great auks. The oldest great auk remains, 75,000 years old, were found at Gibraltar. Great auks are depicted in late Stone Age cave paintings, 18,5000 years old, near Marseilles. Their remains have been found in Norwegian kitchen middens from 13,000 to 2,000 years ago.

More Great Auk, Pinguinus impennis More Images More Pinguinus impennis the great auk or garefowl, is the 'penguin of the north'. Pinguinus impennis is the only flightless auk. The great auk ranged from Canada to Norway, including Newfoundland, Greenland, Iceland, the United Kingdom and Ireland. Hunting was responsible for the decline and eventual extinction of the great auk. The last great auk hunt took place on 3rd June 1844, on Eldey Island off southwestern Iceland, when a breeding pair was thoughtlessly slaughtered. More using their wings, but the great auk had flipperlike wings, too short for flight. It was the original penguin (true penguins are unrelated birds native to the Southern Hemisphere), and the largest recent member of the family Alcidae, probably weighing 5500-8000 g and stretching 65 cm long. More Great Auk - Definition = Great Auk Conservation status: Extinct (1844) image:Greatauk. More Picture of Pinguinus impennis above has been licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution .

Original source: Author: Sarah Hartwell (Messybeast.com) &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Original uploader was Messybeast at en.wikipedia Charadriiformes Remembering the last great auks | Scotland's Nature Remembering the last great auks Posted on August 9, 2013 by Scottish Natural Heritage Today our blog is provided by journalist and wildlife expert Kenny Taylor. A noted author Kenny has written for BBC Wildlife and National Geographic as well as our very own The Nature of Scotland. His piece focuses on the last bird to become extinct in Scotland – the Greak Auk. Kenny was inspired to pen the piece after he attended an event on Papa Westray, where the locals were joined by visiting scientists, musicians, a videographer and others to mark the bicentennial of the death of the last Orcadian great auk. Stunning cliff scenery on Orkney It’s the closest anyone has come to experiencing the real thing in nearly 170 years. Here on Papa Westray, in Orkney’s northern isles, make that two centuries.

As the bird turns, you can see the detail of individual feathers; notice the grooves on its dark beak; see the contrasts of black back and white chest. But it’s a beautiful mirage – a visual echo of something that’s stored hundreds of miles from here, in the vaults of the Natural History Museum’s (NHM) bird room in Tring. What I’m watching is a video installation, brainchild of NHM scientist Jo Cooper, created by Brian McClave of 3-D film-makers Site-Eye. It shows the last great auk ever known on Orkney, killed on Papay by local man William Foulis, as a contract-hit for a southern exhibiter of natural curiosities. Tonight, as Orcadian band Hullion (some sporting hats in the shape of great auk heads) plays downstairs in the Papay Community Centre, its image rotates in a small room above. People file in, don 3-D viewing glasses and watch. The room is dark, save for the bright image on screen. There’s a respectful quiet, punctuated by the occasional half-whispered comment.

The bird shown, killed here in 1813, was the lone survivor of the very last pair known in Britain. Thirty-one years later, the last great auks of all were killed on Eldey, an islet off the south coast of Iceland. The great auk monument, Reykjanes. Iceland Eldey is a fuzzy lump on the horizon when viewed from the Reykjanes Peninsula – a dot that disappears rapidly in the fogs that can swirl along this wild coast. A few weeks after leaving Papay, I see it in the half-light of a south Icelandic summer night, on a visit here with my daughter. As waves crash against dark rocks nearby, Eldey appears and fades and re-appears to the south. Once, the great auk was so numerous in parts of the North Atlantic (the only ocean it ever knew as home) that the flocks on Newfoundland’s Grand Banks were marked on charts as navigation aids. Once, people harvested the big, flightless birds by the tens of thousands for meat, feathers and oil, sometimes literally ripping or burning what they needed from the still-living creatures. Once, this was the finest diving seabird North Atlantic people had ever known.

A trio of men, hired by a merchant who wanted specimens, cornered the last pair on Eldey. One crushed their egg with his boot. Then the adults were killed. “I took him by the neck,” said one of the men of the last bird, “and he flapped his wings.” “He made no cry. I strangled him.” There’s a matter-of-fact banality about that statement. Just another killing by someone used to killing many birds and fish every year to earn a living; to survive. But the silence he describes is haunting: nothing, and then nothing more. Extinction. We stand beside the Reykjanes monument to those last birds – a statue of a great auk staring out to Eldey. Waves crash. It’s cold. The island fades from view. We turn, slowly, and go. NB – The last great auk in Scotland was killed on Stac an Armin, St. Kilda, and the very last northern hemisphere penguin was killed on Eldey, Iceland in 1844 As part of The Year of Natural Scotland, Kenny co-wrote the ‘Infinite Scotland’, website, app and theatre production, funded by SNH and Creative Scotland .

7 Animals Humans Brought to Extinction - Neatorama Neatorama • 2 When you’re a kid, you know the dinosaurs went extinct, but it seems weird that a creature alive today could suddenly be wiped off the earth tomorrow. I remember the first time I really realized what extinction meant when I went to the San Diego Zoo and saw a picture of the dodo bird on a sign talking about extinction. I was familiar with the bird from Alice and Wonderland and asked my mom if we could see it while we were at the zoo. When she explained to me that the bird didn’t exist any more, my heart sank. Even today I am saddened whenever I learn about a species becoming extinct, but the worst part is when you know it was caused by human activity. Here are seven such animals that are no longer on earth thanks to mankind. Thylacine Also known as the Tasmanian tiger, this carnivore wasn’t related to dogs, tigers or hyenas, as many people believe. It was actually a marsupial, closer related to kangaroos and wallabies than any of those other animals. It was originally found in Australia and New Zealand, but its was essentially extinct in those areas long before Europeans discovered it.

Even so, it thrived on the island of Tasmania until European settlers issued began fearing that the animals were eating their livestock. Like wolves, the Tasmanian tiger was often accused of slaughtering sheep in the fields. As a result, the Van Dieman’s Land Company issued a bounty on the creature, offering one pound per adult and ten shillings for each pup. Scientists have still not been able to verify accusations of the animals eating livestock, but it would be too late to help the thylacines anyway, as the last known individual was captured in 1933 and died in a zoo in 1936. That’s her in the video. Sadly, she died two months before the Tasmanian government enacted a law dedicated to protecting the animals. Source Video link Quagga While it looks like a strange cross between a horse and a zebra, a quagga was actually a subspecies of a typical plains zebra with a brown rear end and a striped head. It was once found in great numbers in southern Africa until Europeans started hunting the animals for their meat and their hides. It is believed that the last wild quagga was shot in the late 1870s.

A number were sent to zoos before that point though and the last captive individual was killed in 1883. At the time, people still believed these were the same as other zebra species, the individuals just had different markings. It wasn’t until after the subspecies was eradicated that people realized the animal had become extinct. Some historians have noted, the story is particularly sad because if the same thing happened in modern times, the breeding programs of zoos could help rebuild the population of the animal and release them back into the wild. Interestingly, because the animal was so closely related to other subspecies of zebra, South African researchers have attempted a selective breeding program to create a new stock of the animals. The third and forth generation animals created through this project do look similar to the extinct creatures, but scientists debate whether or not looks are enough to declare these animals quaggas. Source Steller's Sea Cow As a slow-swimming marine mammal that never completely submerged itself and was loaded with blubber, the Steller’s sea cow was doomed from the beginning. These massive herbivores were once abundant in the North Pacific, but aboriginal peoples hunted them until their population was limited to only the Commander Islands.

Unfortunately for the sea cow, they were then discovered in 1751 by George Wilhelm Steller on an expedition led by Vitus Bering. The Stellar sea cows were over 25 feet long. They were slow swimmers who couldn’t submerge themselves. There were only about 1,500 when Europeans first laid eyes on them and it wasn’t long before those remaining were hunted down for food, pelts and blubber, which could be used in oil lamps. Within 27 years of Steller’s discovery, the animals were extinct. Source Dodo The dodo is probably one of the only animals to be famous because it went extinct. In fact, the bird inspired two expressions related to its eradication, both “dead as a dodo” and “to go the way of the dodo” are commonly used 300 years after the birds disappeared. The dodo was related to pigeons and doves, but was flightless and much larger than either of these groups of birds. They weighed over forty pounds and stood more than three feet tall. They were native the island of Mauritius and first discovered by Dutch travelers in 1598.

The birds weren’t afraid of people, which made them easy targets for hunters, but the importation of dogs, cats, pigs, rats and crab-eating macaques is what really killed the species. Some of the animals brought diseases to the birds, others ate them, but the worst were the macaques, which ate the eggs of the dodos. Within one hundred years of their discovery, the bird was wiped off the earth. Interestingly, it wasn’t until the 19th century that the general populace actually took notice of the animal’s disappearance. Up until that time, many people believed that the animal was a myth, but then the first set of dodo bones were discovered in the Mauritian swamp. After the find, a schoolmaster named George Clarke wrote a report on the bird. The public soon gained interest and the bird quickly became a symbol for the human impact on animals. Source Great Auk Like the dodo, the great auk was a large, flightless bird. In fact, they were close to the same height and weight, but the auk was a little smaller.

While the auk might not have been too coordinated on land, it was an excellent swimmer and could even dive down to 3000 feet under the water, while holding its breath for up to fifteen minutes. As a black and white sea bird that was an excellent swimmer, the great auk seems to be related to penguins, but the two are not genetically similar. Interestingly though, the auk was responsible for the naming of the penguins. The Spanish and Portuguese called the auks pingüinos and the Welsh called it pengwyn, meaning “little wing.” When European sailors discovered penguins, they thought they were related to auks and thus, gave them the same name. While auks were relatively widespread throughout the North Atlantic, spreading all the way from New England to Iceland to Norway to Spain, they only had a handful of nesting spots due to their demanding breeding needs. Their breeding areas had to be rocky and isolated with easy access to the ocean and a large population of their favorite fish had to be close by. All of these needs ended up leaving them with no more than 20 breeding colonies, even when they had a massive population.

To make matters worse, they only laid one egg per year, so when their numbers did start to dwindle, it took a long while for them to increase their population. Despite these risks, the great auk was hunted by Native American cultures for over 100,000 years without any problems. The bird was more than just a food source, it was a status symbol. Archeologists even found one native buried with a cloak made from over 200 auk skins –he was certainly a revered member of the tribe while alive. While many other species were wiped out shortly after being discovered by European explorers, the great auk was used as a source of down feathers in Europe since at least the 8th century. Early explorers also used them as an easy source of food and bait since they often ran low on provisions. Even so, the bird managed to survive off of the European coasts until the mid-16th century. When these populations were wiped out, scientists realized the great auk was in danger and the bird became one of the first animals to receive legal protection in an attempt to prevent its extinction.

Unfortunately, the fact that the bird was acknowledged to be rare garnered intense interest from museums and private collectors who wanted specimens for their collections. They offered high rewards to people who could bring them eggs or skins of the birds. Eggers would collect eggs from the nests, keeping those that were unfertilized and throwing away the rest. The last colony of auks was located on the island of Eldey off of Iceland. As soon as it was discovered, museums started hiring people to collect the birds from the colony. The last pair was found incubating an egg on July 3, 1844. The parents were strangled by two of the collectors and just to ensure there would never be another great auk, a third man made sure to stomp on their egg. Source Passenger Pigeon When Europeans first arrived in America, the passenger pigeons were present in such great numbers that it was said to take several hours for a flock to fly overhead. The flocks were often more than a mile wide and 300 miles long and made up of more than two billion birds. The birds went from being one of the most abundant animals on earth in the 19th century to being completely extinct by the 20th century.

The bird’s population started to decrease as Europeans started chopping down forests to make way for civilization, but even this didn’t thin their population too much. But by the 1800’s, people realized they could feed their slaves and servants passenger pigeon for practically nothing. Whole boxcars of pigeons were shipped to the cities, where a pair of pigeons would go for two cents. If the passenger pigeons were like most other birds, they wouldn’t have been so easy to wipe out. Unfortunately, they were incredibly social and could not breed unless they were in a communal breeding area, which would stretch hundreds of miles –each tree could contain up to one hundred nests. Some nesting sites were estimated to hold more than 100 million individuals. This meant that hunters could go to the nesting sites and wipe out the birds at record numbers. At one of the last major nesting sites, there was a five-month long hunt that would generally result in the deaths of about 50,000 birds per day. By the 1890s, it was obvious that the passenger pigeon was seriously endangered. The Michigan legislature enacted a law outlawing the killing of the birds within two miles of a nesting area, but authorities rarely enforced the rule.

By this time, it was already too late anyway. The birds had to have massive nesting colonies in order to successfully breed and there were too few pigeons left. Some people even tried to help the population through captive breeding programs, but there were just too few birds to coax the animals into mating. The last passenger pigeon died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. Source Tecopa Pupfish It might not be as exciting as a Tasmanian tiger, but the Tecopa Pupfish has an important role in the history of extinction, as it was the first animal to be officially declared extinct according to the Endangered Species Act of 1973. The Tecopa Pupfish was endemic only to the Tecoopa Hot Springs of the Mojave Desert. They were first discovered in 1942 and completely wiped out within a few decades after the hot springs were canalized into bath houses. It was officially delisted from the endangered species list in 1981. Source As an animal lover, this was a really hard article to write, but I do think it is important to learn from our history so we can help protect animals that are currently at risk.

This is only a small sampling of the many animals that humans have brought to extinction, but with any luck, we can help stop that number from increasing in the future. Great Auks Great Auks Auks The Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis) is an extinct bird. It was the only species in the genus Pinguinus, flightless giant auks from the Atlantic, to survive until recent times, but is extinct today. It was also known as garefowl (from the Old Norse geirfugl), or penguin (see etymology below). In the past, 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. Remains found in Floridan middens suggest that at least occasionally, birds ventured that far south in winter, possibly as recently as in the 17th century (Weigel, 1958). Characteristics Standing about 75 centimetres or 30-34 inches high and weighing around 5 kg (Livezey, 1988), the flightless Great Auk was the largest of the auks .

It had white and glossy black feathers. The longest wing feathers were only 4 inches long. Its feet and claws were black. The webbed skin between the toes was brown/black. The beak was black with white transverse grooves. There was an area of white feathers on both sides of the head between the beak and each eye. It had a reddish/brown iris. Juvenile birds had less prominent grooves in their beaks and had mottled white and black necks. Ecology 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 (Olson et al., 1979). 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). 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 (Greenway, 1967), and from early 5th century AD Labrador (Jordan and Olson, 1982) 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 (Tuck, 1976). 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. Today, around 75 eggs of the Great Auk remain in museum collections, and about again this number of skins.

While literally thousands of isolated bones have been collected from 19th century Funk Island to neolithic middens, only a minute number of complete skeletons exist (Luther, 1996). Systematics Analysis of mtDNA sequences (Moum et al, 2002) have confirmed morphological and biogeographical studies in regarding the razorbill as the Great Auk's closest living relative. Interestingly, they were also closely related to the dovekie , which underwent a radically different evolution compared to Pinguinus. The entire lineage seems to have evolved in the North Atlantic. Due to the outward similarity to the razorbill (apart from flightlessness and size), the Great Auk was often placed in the genus Alca. However, the fossil record (Pinguinus alfrednewtoni from the Early Pliocene Yorktown Formation of the Lee Creek Mine, USA) and molecular evidence demonstrate that the three genera, while still closely related, diverged soon after their common ancestor had spread to the coasts of the Atlantic.

Etymology One theory connects names for the Great Auk with the origin of the word penguin, which may have come from the Welsh or Breton phrase pen gwyn, meaning "white head", referring originally to the Great Auk (although the head of the Great Auk was not in fact white, there are two white patches on its face). Later, when explorers discovered apparently similar birds in the southern hemisphere, what we now call penguins , the term was supposedly transferred to them. An alternative theory, suggested by John Latham in 1785, claims that the word penguin comes from the Latin pinguis meaning "fat", referring to the plump appearance of the bird. The binomial impennis means "lacking remiges" (flight feathers) in Latin; the remiges of this species are compact and small and possibly worked as vortex generators, if they had any function at all. Copyright: Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License . It uses material from Wikipedia.org ... Additional information and photos added by Avianweb. Please Note: The articles or images on this page are the sole property of the authors or photographers. Please contact them directly with respect to any copyright or licensing questions. Thank you.

BeautyOfBirds strives to maintain accurate and up-to-date information; however, mistakes do happen. If you would like to correct or update any of the information, please send us an e-mail . THANK YOU!

Question: The last pair of which extinct flightless birds were killed in 1844? (Two words.)
Answer: GREAT AUKS