Puffinus is a genus of seabirds in the order Procellariiformes that contains about 20 small to medium-sized shearwaters. Two other shearwater genera are named: Calonectris, which comprises three or four large shearwaters, and Ardenna with another seven species (formerly often included within Puffinus).
The taxonomy of this group is the cause of much debate, and the number of recognised species varies with the source.
The species in this group are long-winged birds, dark brown or black above, and white to dark brown below. They are pelagic outside the breeding season. They are most common in temperate and cold waters.
These tubenosebirds fly with stiff wings, and use a shearing flight technique to move across wave fronts with the minimum of active flight. Some small species, such as the Manx shearwater, are cruciform in flight, with their long wings held directly out from their bodies.
Many are long-distance migrants, perhaps most spectacularly the sooty and short-tailed shearwaters, which perform migrations of 14,000 km or more each year.
Puffinus shearwaters come to islands and coastal cliffs only to breed. They are nocturnal at the colonial breeding sites, preferring moonless nights to minimise predation. They nest in burrows and often give eerie contact calls on their night-time visits. They lay a single white egg.
They feed on fish, squid and similar oceanic food. Some will follow fishing boats to take scraps, notably the sooty shearwater; these species also commonly follow whales to feed on fish disturbed by them.
Traditionally, Puffinus has been grouped with the Procellaria and Calonectris shearwaters. However, more recent results[3][4][5] have determined that the genus is apparently paraphyletic and while in part very close to Calonectris, forms a clade with the genera Pseudobulweria and Lugensa, which were formerly presumed to be gadfly petrels, and can be divided in what has been called the "Puffinus" and the "Neonectris" group after notable species; the latter has been separated as a distinct genus named Ardenna.[6][7] The former is taxonomically confusing, with species having been split and remerged in the last years.[4][5]
Puffinus is a Neo-Latinloanword based on the English "puffin". The original Latin term for shearwaters was usually the catchall name for sea-birds, mergus.[8] "Puffin" and its variants, such as poffin, pophyn and puffing,[9]
referred to the cured carcass of the fat nestling of the shearwater, a former delicacy.[10] The original usage dates from at least 1337, but from as early as 1678 the term gradually came to be used for another, unrelated, seabird, the Atlantic puffin, an auk.[9] The current English name was first recorded in 1835 and refers to the former nesting of this species on the Isle of Man.[11]
Extant species
The genus Puffinus contains the following 21 species:[12]
north Atlantic Ocean in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, France, the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, the Azores, Canary Islands, and Madeira
Phylogeny of the genus based on a study by Joan Ferrer Obiol and collaborators published in 2022. Only 14 of the 21 recognised species were included.[13]
Several fossil species which became extinct long ago are also known. The proportion of larger ("Neonectris") species apparently was larger before the Pliocene, i.e. before marine mammals diversified:
"Puffinus" group
Menorcan shearwater, Puffinus sp. (prehistoric) – possibly extirpated population of extant species; tentatively placed in this group
Puffinus felthami (Pleistocene of W North America)
Puffinus kanakoffi (Pleistocene of W North America)
"Puffinus" aquitanicus
Puffinus antiquus
Puffinus barnesi
Puffinus calhouni
Puffinus diatomicus
Puffinus inceptor
Puffinus mitchelli
Puffinus priscus
"Puffinus" arvernensis (Early Miocene of France) is now considered a primitive albatross of the fossil genus Plotornis. Some other species like P. conradi and P. pacificoides have been reclassified as those of Ardenna.[18]
^Brisson, Mathurin Jacques (1760). Ornithologie, ou, Méthode Contenant la Division des Oiseaux en Ordres, Sections, Genres, Especes & leurs Variétés (in French and Latin). Paris: Jean-Baptiste Bauche. Vol. 1, p. 56, Vol. 6, pp. 129-130.
^Austin, Jeremy J. (1996). "Molecular phylogenetics of Puffinus shearwaters: preliminary evidence from mitochondrial cytochrome b gene sequences". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 6 (1): 77–88. Bibcode:1996MolPE...6...77A. doi:10.1006/mpev.1996.0060. PMID8812308.
^ abAustin, Jeremy J.; Bretagnolle, Vincent & Pasquet, Eric (2004). "A global molecular phylogeny of the small Puffinus shearwaters and implications for systematics of the Little-Audubon's Shearwater complex". Auk. 121 (3): 847–864. doi:10.1642/0004-8038(2004)121[0847:AGMPOT]2.0.CO;2. S2CID86177092.
^Penhallurick, John & Wink, Michael (2004). "Analysis of the taxonomy and nomenclature of the Procellariformes based on complete nucleotide sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene". Emu. 104 (2): 125–147. Bibcode:2004EmuAO.104..125P. doi:10.1071/MU01060. S2CID83202756.
^Sangster, G.; Robb, M.S.; Mackin, W.A.; Bolton, M. (2024). "Vocalizations and species limits in the North Atlantic clade of small shearwaters (Procellariiformes: Puffinus)". Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. 143 (3). blae008. doi:10.1093/biolinnean/blae008.
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