Galápagos Shearwater
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| Puffinus subalaris Ridgway, 1897 |
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 (Austin et al., 2004).
It is endemic to the Galápagos Islands, and is largely sedentary, although individuals may wander as far as the Mexican coast.
[edit] 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.
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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] References
- 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 HTML abstract
- Onley and Scofield, Albatrosses, Petrels and Shearwaters of the World (Helm 2007) ISBN 978-0-7136-4332-9
