Galápagos shearwater

The Galápagos shearwater (Puffinus subalaris) is a small shearwater. Until recently it was considered to be a subspecies of Audubon's shearwater, but it is actually one of two members of a very ancient lineage of the small Puffinus species, the other being, as indicated by mtDNA cytochrome b sequence data, the Christmas shearwater.[3]

Galápagos shearwater

Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Procellariiformes
Family: Procellariidae
Genus: Puffinus
Species:
P. subalaris
Binomial name
Puffinus subalaris
Ridgway, 1897
Synonyms[2]

Puffinus lherminieri subalaris

It is an endemic breeder of the Galápagos Islands, and is largely sedentary, although individuals are commonly seen as far as the Oaxacan coast of Mexico.[4]

Description

The Galápagos shearwater has dark brown upperparts, undertail and underwing flight feathers, the rest of the underparts plumage being white. It sometimes has a dark collar. Both sexes are alike, as are the young after fledging.[4]

It is a slender-bodied shearwater, about 29–31 cm long, with a wingspan of around 63 cm and weighs 123-225 g. The species closely resembles the tropical shearwater, although the latter is typically blacker and has a longer tail.[4]

Behaviour

The Galápagos shearwater is a gregarious species and will feed at sea with other shearwaters and boobies. It flies low over the water and feeds on squid, fish and offal. It intersperses 4-10 stiff wing beats with shallow glides.[4]

gollark: I'm hoping there's some comparatively cheap way to at least mitigate the climatic issues, because otherwise it seems unlikely that (without massive societal change of some kind) much will be done.
gollark: In practice I think the fuel is unlikely to run out, given the multitude of ways to increase uranium use efficiency which aren't economical right now.
gollark: Really? The statistics I vaguely remember reading said we had something like 50 years even using it inefficiently.
gollark: And/or rapidly (in space terms) be pulled in.
gollark: I think we would notice.

References
  1. BirdLife International (2014). "Puffinus subalaris". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2014. Retrieved 13 November 2014.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  2. "Puffinus subalaris". Avibase.
  3. Austin, 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.
  4. Onley, and Scofield, Albatrosses, Petrels and Shearwaters of the World (Helm 2007) ISBN 978-0-7136-4332-9
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