PUFFINS: Not Just Arctic Birds

Puffins are small-sized pelagic seabirds (also called auklets) that feed by diving into the ocean, where they feed on zooplankton, small fish [such as herring], and small squids. These birds are perfectly adapted to life at sea. They can even drink seawater, and they are exceptional swimmers. They are fast flyers (up to 55 miles/hour, and they usually fly only a few feet above the water line.

Classification:

Class Aves

Order Charadriiformes

Family Alcidae

Genus Fratercula (type species: Alca arcica Linnaeus, 1758)

Fratercula is Latin for “little brother of the north.” They probably received their scientific name because of their black-and-white plumage, which resembles a friar’s robe.

A group of puffins is called by various names: a colony, a circus, a puffinry, a gathering, a burrow (because some species rest in burrows, up to 3 feet deep—other species, however, nest on cliffs. Chicks are called a puffling. Puffins mate for life and return to the same burrow, year after year. They are very social birds.

Today, there are three recognized species of puffins:

Fratercula arctica (also called the “North Atlantic puffin” (this is the smallest in size of the puffins today); it lives in northern Europe, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Norway, Atlantic Canada and south to Maine, New York, and even Morocco.  

Fratercula corniculata (also called the “North Pacific puffin” or the “Horned puffin”); it lives in the north Pacific coasts of Siberia, Alaska, and British Columbia; it winters south to California and Baja California, Mexico.

Fratercula corniculata (13 to 15 inches long and 13 ounces to 1.7 pounds weight).

Fratercula cirrrhata (also called the “tufted puffin” or the “crested puffin”) (this is the largest in size of the puffins today—reaching 15 inches long and weighing up to 1.7 pounds); it lives in the North Pacific, British Columbia, southeast Alaska, Aleutian Islands, Kamchatka, Kuril Islands, Sea of Okhotsk; it winters south to Honshu, Japan and to California.

Two views of an adult Fratercula corniculata. Photos taken at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey California, where they have a rocky shoreline “live” exhibit of puffins. Images courtesy of a member of my family (Summer, 2023).

Puffins originated in the Pacific area and later migrated to the Arctic area, undoubtedly when the climate changed, starting during Pliocene time.

The geologic range of puffins is middle Miocene to recent. Late Pleistocene fossils of the extinct puffin, Fratercula dowi, have been found on San Miguel and San Nicolas islands in the Channel Islands of southern California (Guthrie et al. 2002).

References Used:

Guthrie, D.A., et al. 2002. A new species of extinct Late Pleistocene puffin (Aves, Alcidae) from the southern California Channel Islands. Proceedings of the Fifth California Islands Symposium, U.S. Department of Interior, Pp. 525–530.

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