Great Auk Research Articles

How did the Great Auk raise its young?

The extant auks show three strategies of chick rearing--precocial (chicks leave the nest site when a few days old), intermediate (young raised to a mass of around 20% of adult mass) and semi-precocial (young raised to a mass of around 65% of adult mass). It is not known which strategy the extinct Great Auk used. In this paper, we investigate this issue by a novel combination of a time and energy budget model and phylogenetic comparison. The first approach indicates that for reasonable estimates of the equation parameters, the Great Auk could have followed an intermediate strategy. For a limited range of parameters, the Great Auk could have followed the semi-precocial strategy. Phylogenetic comparison shows that it is unlikely that the Great Auk followed a precocial strategy. The results suggest that the Great Auk followed an intermediate strategy as does its presumed closest extant relative the Razorbill.

The Rake's Progress as Opera Museum

In a room, gathering dust, strange objects lie: a Roman bust, stuffed birds, a mummy, some fossils. They are ossified remnants, testimonies to the fact of extinction. Thus begins act 3 of The Rake’s Progress (1951). Such collections have more than a passing presence in the opera. These particular objects, about to be sold off, appear in the previous scene (minus dust and neglect) as well-loved souvenirs, enumerated in Baba the Turk’s list aria. There, they commemorate exotic travels and aristocratic admirers, although they have begun to unmoor themselves from the experiences they ostensibly recall. (One might be the gift of “Sir John” or perhaps “Lord Gordon,” a token of Venice or maybe Milan.) This removal of the collected object from its place of origin or even from its souvenir status is more marked toward the end of Baba’s list, as she shifts from glittery gifts to a set of dead things, her favorites: the fossils and mummies, the waxwork dummies, and the culminating figure of extinction, the Great Auk. Collections, then, are especially associated with Baba, but she does not have a monopoly on them. While the opera obsesses over deadness in many forms, the setting of its climactic scene—a graveyard—serves not only as a reminder of this morbid concern and a reversal of the opera’s pastoral opening, but as an ominous echo of Baba’s collection, its more intimate relics hidden rather than displayed, and presumably more carefully labeled. The Rake’s Progress, like Baba’s jumble, makes such a profusion of gestures to the past as to threaten to overflow its bounds. At issue are not just personal memories of travel and acquaintances, but entire literary and musical traditions, treated as souvenirs of European high culture. To begin with, there is the opera’s plot: its source, chosen by Stravinsky, was a set of paintings by William Hogarth, depicting the misadventures of a young heir within grotesque scenes of eighteenth-century London. This basic scenario was heavily supplemented by the librettists, W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman. The fairy-tale trope of three wishes, the Faust story, the medieval morality, mythological references: all went into the mix, smoothed into a stylized eighteenth-century diction. Stravinsky was just as promiscuous. His central model, as he was happy to admit, was Mozart’s comic operas, especially Cosi fan tutte, a two-piano

Early Migratory Fishermen and Newfoundland's Seabird Colonies

Abstract The migratory fishery at Newfoundland was a key step in the expansion of the European world system and was, for centuries, one of the largest industrial enterprises in the New World. But large-scale predation of cod was only part of the impact Europeans had on the northwest Atlantic. The shore-based salt-cod fishery involved a complex interaction with local ecosystems, creating predatory pressure on animals used as bait. Cod fishers were large-scale predators of seabirds as well as cod. Use of the Great Auk from the Funk Islands off northern Newfoundland for provisions is well known. It is less often recognized that early fishers preferred seasonal stations close to seabird colonies, in order to use nesting birds as bait. By 1600, human predation in Newfoundland's coastal ecosystem was already a complex business, involving local seabirds and several of the largest marine mammals, as well as fish. Even if only a relatively minor factor in the marine ecology of the northwest Atlantic, industrial-sc...

An Alca-bibliographical study ofThe English pilot: the history of its account of the great auk (Alcidae:Pinguinus impennis)

Bibliographical details in the biological literature concerning an account and figure of the great auk (Pinguinus impennis) that appeared in the navigational guide known as The English pilot: the fourth book are largely erroneous. The first edition of this work appeared in 1689, but the great auk account in question did not appear until the edition of 1716 and was carried through all later editions until the final one in 1794. By that time, the information was probably very much out of date due to the rapid overexploitation of the birds.

Whalers and woggins: a new vocabulary for interpreting some early accounts of the great auk and penguins

The overlooked word “woggin”, with many variants, was widely used by Yankee whalers for both the great auk (Pinguinus impennis) and for penguins (Spheniscidae), as documented in numerous logbooks and journals and at least two published sources. Although in use from at least 1762 until the 1860s, this word appears to be entirely unknown in scholarly literature and merits wider recognition both for understanding early accounts and for its potential for revealing new information about the extinct great auk.

A Human Taste for Rarity Spells Disaster for Endangered Species

A Human Taste for Rarity Spells Disaster for Endangered Species

John Masefield, The "Great Auk" of English Literature: A Bibliography (review)

John Masefield, The "Great Auk" of English Literature: A Bibliography (review)

John Masefield, the "Great Auk" of English Literature: A Bibliography. Philip W. Errington

Previous articleNext article No AccessBOOK REVIEWSJohn Masefield, the "Great Auk" of English Literature: A Bibliography. Philip W. Errington Steven Escar SmithSteven Escar Smith Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America Volume 99, Number 4DECEMBER 2005 Published for the Bibliographical Society of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/pbsa.99.4.24296081 Views: 2Total views on this site COPYRIGHT © 2005 THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICAPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Review: John Masefield: The ‘Great Auk’ of English Literature. A Bibliography

John Masefield: The ‘Great Auk’ of English Literature. A Bibliography By Philip W. Errington . London : The British Library ; New Castle, DE : Oak Knoll Press . 2004. xiv + 907. £65 . ISBN 0 7123 4863 8 (UK); 1 58456 144 0 (USA)

The great auk (Pinguinus impennis) in the Netherlands during the Roman period

AbstractBones of the great auk (Pinguinus impennis) have been found in four archaeological sites in the Netherlands in recent years. These sites all date to the early Roman period. The great auk is believed never to have been a breeding bird in the Netherlands, which makes the presence of the bones remarkable. The history and ecology of the great aukare outlined. Some possible reasons are discussed for the presence of the great auk in Dutch waters during the early Roman period. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A comparative test of the correlated evolution of flightlessness and relative brain size in birds

AbstractSecondary flightlessness has evolved independently many times in birds. Morphological changes in the pectoral girdle and flight feathers and changes in body size have been associated with the evolution of flightlessness, and it has also been suggested that flightless birds have relatively small brains. We therefore tested whether flightlessness is related to changes in relative brain size. Relative brain size was compared between volant and flightless species using both conventional statistics and modern comparative methods within nine taxonomic groups. No significant difference was found between flightless and volant species in six of these groups, regardless of whether body mass or tibiotarsal measurements were used as estimates of body size. Species with relatively smaller brains compared with their volant relatives were the great auk Pinguinus impennis, the kakapo Strigops habroptilus and some species of penguin. Thus, we found no evidence of a general correlation between the evolution of secondary flightlessness and the evolution of relatively small brains in birds. This suggests that neural requirements are not significantly different between flightless and volant species, although our methods may have overlooked subtle neurological changes that do not result in markedly different endocranial volumes.

Remarks on the terminology used to describe developmental behaviour among the auks (Alcidae), with particular reference to that of the Great AukPinguinus impennis

Much of the historical record relating to the breeding biology of the Great AukPinguinus impennisconsists of statements on which it is not safe to rely without corroboration. There is, nevertheless, sufficient evidence for a strong case to be argued for the species having evolved a precocial chick‐rearing strategy, together with an incubation period that is remarkably brief for a bird of its size. In this way, the species would have minimized the time for which it had to remain ashore to raise its young. Before the evidence for this proposition is evaluated, a review is undertaken of the history and usage of the terminology most frequently used to describe the developmental condition of young birds on hatching. Modifications to the terminology have been suggested where there is a potential for confusion, and an entirely new term, ‘hypoprecocial’, introduced for downy young that require an appreciable period of brooding before quitting the breeding site. Regarding the species itself, it is suggested that the Great Auk had evolved a strategy that was more fully precocial than that of any seabird whose breeding biology is known to science.

Walter Rothschild's second Great Auk skeleton: a history of its posthumous voyage.

ABSTRACT: The second complete Great Auk skeleton (Pinguinus impennis) formerly in Walter Rothschild's possession, previously thought lost, has been located. It was sold by Rowland Ward in 1905 to Georg Albert Girtanner, St Gallen, Switzerland. After Girtanner's death in 1907 the skeleton passed to the Senckenbergische Naturforschende Gesellschaft in Frankfurt, Germany. A newly discovered letter, from Girtanner to Ernst Hartert, curator of Rothschild's collection at Tring, helps to reconstruct the posthumous voyage of this Great Auk skeleton.

Who Killed the Great Auk?

Who Killed the Great Auk?

Mitochondrial DNA sequence evolution and phylogeny of the Atlantic Alcidae, including the extinct great auk (Pinguinus impennis).

The Atlantic auk assemblage includes four extant species, razorbill (Alca torda), dovekie (Alle alle), common murre (Uria aalge), and thick-billed murre (U. lomvia), and one recently extinct species, the flightless great auk (Pinguinus impennis). To determine the phylogenetic relationships among the species, a contiguous 4.2-kb region of the mitochondrial genome from the extant species was amplified using PCR. This region included one ribosomal RNA gene, four transfer RNA genes, two protein-coding genes, the control region, and intergenic spacers. Sets of PCR primers for amplifying the same region from great auk were designed from sequences of the extant species. The authenticity of the great auk sequence was ascertained by alternative amplifications, cloning, and separate analyses in an independent laboratory. Phylogenetic analyses of the entire assemblage, made possible by the great auk sequence, fully resolved the phylogenetic relationships and split it into two primary lineages, Uria versus Alle, Alca, and Pinguinus. A sister group relationship was identified between Alca and Pinguinus to the exclusion of ALLE: Phylogenetically, the flightless great auk originated late relative to other divergences within the assemblage. This suggests that three highly divergent species in terms of adaptive specializations, Alca, Alle, and Pinguinus, evolved from a single lineage in the Atlantic Ocean, in a process similar to the initial adaptive radiation of alcids in the Pacific Ocean.

Who Killed the Great Auk?

Who Killed the Great Auk?

The great auk and the gannet: a prehistoric perspective on the extinction of the great auk

AbstractArchaeological finds of the great auk, Alca impennis, and the northern gannet, Sula bassana, from prehistoric and historic coastal sites around the British Isles show the earlier distribution of these birds. They suggest that the great auk bred more widely in the eastern Atlantic than on the few breeding sites which are attested historically. Comparison between the two species suggests that the method of exploitation as well as the biology and behaviour of each contributed to the extinction of the former and the survival of the latter. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The great auk

The great auk

Who Killed the Great Auk?

Who Killed the Great Auk?

Going, going, gone—the ‘Durham’ Great Auk

Going, going, gone—the ‘Durham’ Great Auk