Egg of ''Puffinus boydi''
(coll. MHNT) Boyd's shearwater (''Puffinus boydi''), also known as the Cape Verde little shearwater, is a small

shearwater Shearwaters are medium-sized long-winged seabirds in the petrel family Procellariidae. They have a global marine distribution, but are most common in temperate and cold waters, and are pelagic outside the breeding season. Description These tub ...

which breeds in the Cape Verde archipelago of the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

some 570 km off the coast of

West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, M ...

. The epithet commemorates British ornithologist Arnold Boyd.

Taxonomy

Boyd's shearwater is sometimes considered a subspecies of either the

little shearwater The little shearwater (''Puffinus assimilis'') is a small shearwater in the petrel family Procellariidae. Despite the generic name, it is unrelated to the puffins, which are auks, the only similarity being that they are both burrow-nesting s ...

, Audubon's shearwater or Macaronesian shearwater. It has also been shown to be synonymous with the extinct ''Puffinus parvus'' Shufeldt of

Bermuda ) , anthem = "God Save the King" , song_type = National song , song = "Hail to Bermuda" , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , mapsize2 = , map_caption2 = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = , es ...

References

* * Puffinus Birds of Cape Verde Birds described in 1912 {{Procellariiformes-stub