Recently Extinct Animals - Species Info

Pinguinus impennis		HOME

Kingdom	Animalia	Image: Great Auks. Collector cards from Tiere der Urwelt (Animals of the Prehistoric World), Series Ia (from a set inscribed 1916). Created by Heinrich Harder. This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This applies to the European Union, Canada, the United States and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 70 years.
Phylum	Chordata
Class	Aves
Order	Charadriiformes
Family	Alcidae
Authority	(Linnaeus, 1758)

English Name	Great Auk, Garefowl
Danish Name	Gejrfugl
Dutch Name	Reuzenalk
French Name	Grand Pingouin
German Name	Riesenalk, Meergans
Icelandic Name	Geirfugl
Irish Name	Falcóg Mhór
Spanish Name	Alca Gigante, Gran Pingüino

Synonyms	Alca impennis Linnaeus, 1758; Plautus impennis Brünnich, 1772; Pinguinus impennis Bonneterre, 1790; Alca borealis Forster, 1817.

Characteristics	This 75-cm auk, which was the only auk that was unable to fly due to the atrophy of its wings, became known as the 'penguin of the north'. Although not a penguin, it resembled these flightless birds of the Southern Hemisphere not only with its small wings, but also with its black back, white abdomen, and upright posture. The word 'penguin' itself is derived from the Celtic name of the Great Auk. Distinctive features of the Great Auk are a black, grooved bill, brown on the sides of the head, neck and throat, and a large white patch in the front of the eyes. The sexes were, apparently, identical (although it is possible that slight external differences existed), but the plumage was subject to some seasonal change. In winter the birds underwent a plumage change similar to that experienced by their relatives the guillemot and the razorbill. The black of the fore-neck and chin was replaced by white, and the lozenge-shaped white patch between eye and beak disappeared. Photo: mounted great auk in the Rosensteinmuseum in Stuttgart, Germany. Copyright and courtesy by Sordes. All rights reserved.

Lifestyle	During the winter the Great Auk was at sea and seldom seen. They came ashore on rocky offshore islands only to breed, than the Great Auk lived in large colonies.

Range & Habitat	The largest of the Auks, the Great Auk or Garefowl, lived previously in the low-artic and boreal waters of the North Atlantic. The colonies were smaller in the eastern Atlantic, probably due to longer period of human exploitation. The Great Auk migrated in the winter southwards. Archaeological remains (bones dating from the Ice Ages) have been found as far south as Florida and southern Spain. About a thousand years ago it ranged from Canada to Norway, United Kingdom and Ireland. In historical times the Great Auk also occurred in the North Sea area. Excavations of a roman settlement near Velsen, Holland, revealed a skeleton of the Great Auk. There have also been found some bones in Rotterdam, Holland. The Great Auk foraged in shallow waters, such as the continental shelf waters of the Grand Banks, and came ashore on rocky offshore islands only to breed. Breeding islands were remote and mostly low-lying, and usually quite close to rich fish-feeding grounds.

Food	Food consisted of fish, crabs, plankton, and other sea creatures. Immature birds probably fed on plankton while adults dived for fish. (Fuller, 2003)

Reproduction	In the summer the Great Auk went to rocky islands to breed. All the known breeding areas were lonely and remote. The Great Auk nested in large colonies. Each nesting pair could produce only one egg a year, which was placed on bare rock. Each egg was marked differently from any of the other eggs. The exact length of the breeding season is unknown, as it is unknown how long the young stayed on their breeding rock before they swam away. (Fuller, 2003) Photo: a Great Auk egg. Copyright The Extinction Website. All rights reserved.

History & Population	Before 1300, the Great Auk had already disappeared from Norway. By the late 1600s the Great Auk population was dramatically declined owing to commercial exploitation for feathers oil and meat. In the western Atlantic , Funk Island, off the coast of Newfoundland was there the last stronghold. On Funk Island the last Great Auk was probably killed sometime between 1785 and 1800. The last Great Auks on the Faroer Islands were killed in 1808, on the Orkney Islands in 1812, the British Isles in 1813, and in Greenland in 1815. After the disappearance of these birds in that places, the only remaining breeding place of the Great Auk was the small volcanic island of Geirfuglasker off south-western Iceland, which was named after the Great Auk or Garefowl (Geirfugl). Here the population had seriously declined in the early 19th century, particularly after heavy onslaughts in 1808 and 1813. In 1830, an underwater volcanic eruption and earthquake destroyed Geirfuglasker. The greater part of the remaining Great Auks perished during or after the disaster, and as many as 27 birds were killed by man in 1830 an 1831. The surviving ones settled on the nearby island of Eldey. This finally sealed their fate, since Eldey was easily accessible to man. The last Great Auk hunt took place on 3 June 1844, when a pair was beaten to death and its egg was broken. Only four years earlier a Great Auk on St. Kilda had suffered a similar fate, not to suit a collector, but out of superstition, because they thought that it might have been a witch. The extinction of this species as a result of irrational hunting shows that no animal species is protected from rapid extinction. Large numbers are no longer a guarantee of survival when man makes use of his tools of destruction.

Extinction Causes	Man heavily persecuted these birds. Agile as the Great Auks were in the water, on land they were easy victims for hunters. Initially, these birds were hunted for its meat. From 1497 until the end of the 18th century, the once large population on Newfoundland was an important source of meat for European fishermen and whalers. Later the Great Auk was also taken for their feathers, which were used in hats. Some researchers have speculated that the 'little ice-age' (1550-1850) may have partly contributed to the decline of the Great Auk.

Conservation Attempts	In 1785 George Cartwright predicted the extinction of the Great Auk on Funk Island. Ten years earlier Newfoundland had, unsuccessfully, petitioned Britain to stop the massacre of sea birds. Around this time magistrates in St. John's served a penalty for killing birds and stealing their eggs although taking birds for fish bait was still allowed. Nonetheless, fewer than 45 years later the last breeding pair on earth were killed by collectors. The extinction of the Great Auk serves as a warning to how direct human exploitation can be a major causal factor in declines of seabirds.

Museum Specimens	Today there are 81 mounted skins, 24 complete skeletons, 75 eggs, one specimen from Funk Island in a mummified condition and two collections of viscera left remaining from the millions of Great Auks that once were identified with the North Atlantic and its great fishing resources. A rare specimen of a Great Auk that was moulting into its winter plumage still survives as a stuffed specimen at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. The last two Great Auks were stuffed by chemist from Reykjavik, Iceland. He also preserved the carcasses in spirits. No one knows what became of the stuffed birds (although there is some evidence to suggest that they may be the specimens now in Brussels and Los Angeles), but the internal organs (including their eyes) still survive at the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark (see left-hand image). Other Museums with specimens are: Koninklijk Belgisch Instituut voor Natuurwetenschappen (Brussels, Belgium), Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum 'Naturalis' (Leiden, the Netherlands), Rosensteinmuseum (Stuttgart, Germany). Photo: Eyes and internal organs of the Great Auk. Photographed by Helle Jørgensbye at the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark. Copyright © Danish Zoological Society. All rights reserved.

Relatives	The razorbill Alca torda (Dutch: alk, French: pingouin torda, German: toralk, Icelandic: álka), the common guillemot Uria aalge (Dutch: zeekoet, French: guillemot de troïl, German: trottelumme, Icelandic: langvía), the Brünnich’s guillemot Uria lomvia (Dutch: dikbekzeekoet, French: guillemot de Brünnich, German: dickschnabellumme, Icelandic: stuttnefja), the black guillemot Cepphus grille (Dutch: zwarte zeekoet, French: guillemot à mirior, German: gryllteiste, Icelandic: teista), the puffin Fratercula arctica (Dutch: papegaaiduiker, French: macreune moine, German: papagaitaucher, Icelandic: lundi), and the little auk Alle alle (Dutch: kleine alk, French: mergula nain, German: krabbentaucher, Icelandic: haftyrðill).

Links	IUCN Red List of threatened Species – Pinguinus impennis. 300 Pearls – Museum highlights of natural diversity. 300 Pearls – The great auk (Pinguinus impennis). 300 Pearls – Great Auk – The ‘penguin’ of the northern hemisphere. Centre for Biodiversity and Concervation Biology – The Great Auk – An Introduction. Pinguinus impennis, Great Auk: The MacGillivray Art Collection at the Natural History Museum. Mr. Rick’s Extinct Birds of North America. The Great Auk Pinguinus impennis. Extinct Birds from John James Audubon’s Birds of America – Great Auk. Canadian Biodiversity: The Great Auk. Extinct Stock Photography. Arche Online - Riesenalk. Histoires Naturelles du Grand Père Soulcie – Grand Pingouin ou Alque Géant. Geirfuglinn - Náttúrufræðistofnun Íslands. Óriásalka – Pinguinus impennis (Linnaeus, 1758).

References	Fuller, E. 2003. The Great Auk - The Extinction of the Original Penguin. Bunker Hill Publishing, Boston.
Last updated: 18^th April 2008. This page is a part of The Extinction Website. © 2000-2009.

300 Pearls – Museum highlights of natural diversity.