Giant aalk
| Giant aalk | ||||||||||
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Giant aalk. Painting by JG Keulemans |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||
| Penguin | ||||||||||
| Bonnaterre , 1791 | ||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||
| Pinguinus impennis | ||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
The giant aalk ( Pinguinus impennis , syn .: Alca impennis ) is an extinct, flightless seabird. With a height of up to 85 centimeters and a weight of about five kilograms, it was the largest of the alkenbirds . It is the only species from this family that became extinct in historical times. The last reliable sighting of this species took place in 1852.
The "penguin" of the northern hemisphere
The genus name Pinguinus reveals that it is the bird that was originally referred to as the penguin , only to then transfer the name to the unrelated penguins of the southern hemisphere. The origin of the name penguin may be of Welsh origin: pen means "head" and gwyn means "white". Indeed, the bird had a noticeable large patch of white feathers on its forehead, which gave it the nickname "spectacle alk". His belly was also white, but his back was black, so that there was a certain resemblance to penguins.
Another explanation derives the name from the Latin pinguis "fat", which would refer to the physique of birds. So far, no reliable evidence has been found for any of the hypotheses.
description
The giant aalk was about 70 to 85 cm tall. A bird caught in the Faroe Islands in 1808 weighed around four kilograms; current research based on the skeleton suggests that the average weight was around five kilograms. It is assumed that there were gender-specific differences ( sexual dimorphism ) with regard to both body and beak size . No subspecies are distinguished, but bone finds suggest that the giant alks breeding on the western coasts of the Atlantic were slightly larger than those living on the eastern coasts.
His body was adapted to being in cold water. The long, pointed beak was optimized for fishing. Their thick plumage, short wings, and webbed feet, which were placed far back on the body, made giant alks good swimmers and divers. On the other hand, they found it difficult to move around on land.
distribution and habitat
The giant aalk used to be found on islands in the North Atlantic. Steep cliffs, on which a number of other alks breed, were inaccessible as a nesting site for the flightless giant alk. He had to make do with the rare bare, fairly flat islets far from the mainland so that predators such as polar bears could not be dangerous to him. Only eight breeding colonies are definitely occupied. Funk Island , a small uninhabited island off the coast of Newfoundland, was believed to be home to the largest colony. It is assumed that when the first Europeans arrived there, 100,000 giant alks were breeding on this stretch of coast. Giant owls also breed on Penguin Island, off the coast of southern Newfoundland. Another breeding colony was located on one of the islands in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence; The nearby Cape Breton Island is considered to be a possible, but not confirmed, former breeding colony . Geirfuglasker , Eldey and Vestmannaeyjar were populated by giant alks off the Icelandic coast . In the east of the Atlantic, the Faroe Islands , St. Kilda and Papa Westray were among the islands with breeding colonies, although the latter island may not have been permanently inhabited. Calf of Man , an island off the Isle of Man , is another possible breeding site. Another animal, the hide of which is now kept in a museum in Copenhagen, was shot as a breeding bird in Greenland. However, the exact location of the catch is not known.
Bone finds of giant alks are known from excavations in Florida, New England, Labrador, various locations in western Greenland, Iceland, the entire coast of Norway, Denmark, Holland, Brittany, from various locations in Italy and southwestern Europe and also in Morocco. In terms of their distribution, apart from the finds in Florida, they are very similar to those found in the closest relative of the giant alc, the razorbill . It therefore appears that the giant alk was confined to the boreal and subarctic waters as a breeding bird , but migrated south during the winter half-year. The richness of the finds in Norway suggests that it was once widespread there as a breeding bird, as it was actually only hunted by humans during the breeding season. It cannot be ruled out that giant alks migrated to Florida during the winter months, but it is also possible that hides and bones of this species were traded as far as Florida. It is certain that giant alks were in Greenlandic waters from September to January and that they were regularly sighted in winter off the coast of Massachusetts in the 18th century. Giant alks seem to have basically stayed in the vicinity of coastal waters and continental shelves , because the sighting of giant alks was regarded by the earlier seafarers as a sign that the Newfoundland Bank had been reached.
food
The giant alk probably lived mainly on large fish. This is inferred from its size and from analogies with its smaller relative, the razorbill . Isotope studies of the bones of the giant alks also indicate that fish made up a larger proportion of the diet of the giant alks than is the case with other alken birds. The literature discusses whether young giant alks were fed zooplankton by their parent birds. However, the giant alks lack morphological features that are typical of alken birds with this behavior, so that the prevailing doctrine is that giant alks carried fish in their bills to their young birds.
Reproduction
Reports from seafarers who have been able to observe these birds suggest that giant alks, similar to guillemots , brooded close together without maintaining any individual distance. A nest was not built. The one egg that made up the clutch was placed directly on the floor. The eggs are similar in shape to those of the guillemot . Their color was creamy white and yellow-brown to a pale bluish green. Based on the egg size, it was concluded that their fresh weight was around 327 grams. Historical reports from St. Kilda suggest that the first giant alks arrived there in mid-May and left this island again in late June.
No descriptions have survived of the downy chicks and young birds. It is therefore considered possible that the nestling period was very short and that the young birds left the breeding colonies at a time when they had not yet reached the size of adult giant alks. Such behavior is also known from guillemots and razorbills. There are historical reports that the chicks were still wearing their downy plumage when they left the breeding colony. That would fit in with old reports that the giant alks carried their chicks on their backs. This also suggests that the young birds were cared for by their parent birds while at sea.
die out
The Canadian breeding grounds were initially plundered by hungry sailors; From the 18th century, people established themselves on the islands who beat the birds with clubs and blanched them in order to obtain their down . The fat bones were used as fuel. In 1785, the slaughter for down collecting was so widespread that Captain George Cartwright warned of the species becoming extinct. Due to their low rate of reproduction (each female laid a maximum of one egg per year), the populations were unable to recover. The last specimen was seen in the Faroe Islands in 1808 when bird trappers visited the Stóra Dímun region . With their helplessness in the country, the clumsy birds were driven in droves by seafarers into large places enclosed by stone dams and killed there by the thousands.
In the 19th century the inaccessible Geirfuglasker near Iceland was the last refuge of the species. In 1830 the island was destroyed by a volcanic eruption. The narrow foot of the neighboring, steep rock island Eldey then became the last known breeding site. A double-digit number of birds were killed there between 1831 and 1840. On the morning of June 3, 1844, the last two brooding specimens were strangled by Jón Brandsson and Sigurður Ísleifsson and the last egg was crushed by Ketill Ketilson. The bellows were sold to a Danish collector. The exact description of their capture, the killing and the sale of the hide has come down to the research of the ornithologists Alfred Newton and John Wolley from Cambridge, who were in Hafnir in 1858 .
The rarity of the giant alkali and the resulting high prices for collector's specimens sealed the bird's extinction. One could say that this species was actually destroyed for good by ornithologists and bird hide collectors who did not want to do without a specimen in their collection. For example, the last two bellows from Eldey Island can be seen today in the Copenhagen Natural History Museum, soaked in formaldehyde. There are comparatively many preparations, such as B. in the exhibition collections of some museums, in Germany in the natural history museums in Berlin , Bonn, Braunschweig, Bremen, Darmstadt, Dresden , Frankfurt am Main , Gießen, Gotha, Göttingen, Hanover , Kiel, Koethen, Leipzig, Munich, Oldenburg, Stuttgart and Wittenberg, in Switzerland in Naturama in Aarau. The number of preserved museum specimens (bellows, show specimens) is given as 78. There are also two skeletons, skulls and other skeletal parts, as well as dubious pieces. As low as this number appears, it is relatively high for a bird that died out nearly two centuries ago; many other species have only a single specimen or not at all.
The Lost Bird Project
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Reykjanesbær municipality in southwest Iceland is a member of an international project called The Lost Bird Project . The American film producer and director Deborah Dickson made a documentary about this project in 2012. As part of this project, the artist Todd Mc Grain created sculptures about extinct birds. Underneath is a bronze sculpture of the giant alc, which is set up on the coast near Reykjanesbær with a view towards Eldey . The National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyoming , published a video about the Lost Bird Project in September 2013 , showing the sculptor installing his sculptures in the museum.
Others
As a reminder of the bird and a warning against a misguided urge for science, the magazine of the American Ornithologists Union is named after the giant aalk ("Auk" in English).
supporting documents
literature
- Anthony J. Gaston, Ian L. Jones: The Auks (= Bird Families of the World. Vol. 4 (recte 5)). Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 1998, ISBN 0-19-854032-9 .
- Dieter Luther: The extinct birds of the world (= The new Brehm library. Vol. 424). 3rd, revised edition. Ziemsen, Wittenberg Lutherstadt 1986 (4th, unchanged edition, reprint of the 3rd edition from 1986. Spectrum, Akademischer Verlag, Magdeburg et al. 1995, ISBN 3-89432-213-6 ).
- Wolfgang Müller : The giant alken bellows of Berlin and Reykjavík. In: Wolfgang Müller: Blue Tit. The German-Icelandic blue tit book. Schmitz, Kassel et al. 1997, ISBN 3-927795-19-4 , pp. 19-24.
- Farley Mowat : The Fall of Noah's Ark. On the suffering of animals among people. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1987, ISBN 3-498-04297-1 , Chapter 1, (30 pages), "Der Speerschnabel" . (Original edition: Sea of Slaughter. McClelland & Stewart, Toronto 1984, ISBN 0-7710-6556-6 ).
- A chapter in: Anita Albus : Of rare birds. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-10-000620-8 .
- Burkhard Wetekam: From the end of a kind. In: Die Zeit , No. 20, May 8, 2008, p. 90, time lapses.
- Ingvar Svanberg: Faroese giant alken Pinguinus impennis (L.) in captivity. In: Ornithological Communications. Monthly bird watching and field ornithology. Vol. 61, No. 1, 2009, ISSN 0030-5723 , pp. 13-20.
- Cara Giaimo: What's A Woggin? A Bird, a Word, and a Linguistic Mystery. Whalers wrote about woggins all the time. What in the world were they? In: Naturecultures, October 26, 2016 online, with various images . Woggin or Waggin was a term used by seafarers to describe the giant alkali.
- Wilhelm Blasius : Der Riesenalk, Alca Impennis L. In: Naumann , Natural History of the Birds of Central Europe. , Gera-Untermhaus, 1903. online, with 5 plates
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gaston et al., P. 121
- ↑ Gaston et al., P. 121
- ↑ Gaston et al., P. 122
- ↑ Emilie Campmas, Véronique Laroulandie, Patrick Michel, Fethi Amani, Roland Nespoulet, Abdeljallil El Hajraoui Mohammed: A great auk (Pinguinus impennis) in North Africa: discovery of a bone remain in a Neolithic layer of El Harhoura 2 Cave (Temara, Morocco ) , in: W. Prummel, JT Zeiler, DC Brinkhuizen (eds.): Birds in Archeology. Proceedings of the 6th Meeting of the ICAZ Bird Working Group in Groningen (23.8-27.8.2008) , Barkhuis, 2010, pp. 233-240. On p. 234 there is a table of the sites in south-western Europe, Italy and Morocco including dates.
- ↑ Gaston et al., P. 122
- ↑ Gaston et al., P. 122
- ↑ Gaston et al., P. 125
- ^ Brehms Tierleben 1882
- ^ Richard Ellis : No Turning Back. The Life and Death of Animal Species. HarperCollins, New York NY 2004, ISBN 0-06-055803-2 , p. 160.
- ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung: Biodiversity: What this bird teaches mankind. May 5, 2019, accessed May 5, 2019 .
- ↑ Todd McGrain: The Lost Bird Project on YouTube , accessed August 14, 2018.
- ^ National Geographic Society: Great Auks Become Extinct. December 16, 2013, accessed January 14, 2019 .
Web links
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- Pinguinus impennis inthe IUCN 2016 Red List of Threatened Species . Posted by: BirdLife International, 2016. Retrieved February 6, 2017.