Masatierra petrel (''Pterodroma defilippiana'') or De Filippi's petrel, is a species of

seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same enviro ...

in the family

Procellariidae The family Procellariidae is a group of seabirds that comprises the fulmarine petrels, the gadfly petrels, the diving petrels, the prions, and the shearwaters. This family is part of the bird order Procellariiformes (or tubenoses), which also ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

where it nests in the

Juan Fernández Islands The Juan Fernández Islands ( es, Archipiélago Juan Fernández) are a sparsely inhabited series of islands in the South Pacific Ocean reliant on tourism and fishing. Situated off the coast of Chile, they are composed of three main volcanic i ...

(including Masatierra) and

Desventuradas Islands The Desventuradas Islands ( es, Islas Desventuradas, , "Unfortunate Islands" or ''Islas de los Desventurados'', "Islands of the Unfortunate Ones") is a group of four small oceanic islands located off the coast of Chile, northwest of Santiago in t ...

. Its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s are open

sea The sea, connected as the world ocean or simply the ocean, is the body of salty water that covers approximately 71% of the Earth's surface. The word sea is also used to denote second-order sections of the sea, such as the Mediterranean Sea, ...

s and rocky shores.

Etymology

The petrel was first described by

Enrico Hillyer Giglioli Enrico Hillyer Giglioli (13 June 1845 – 16 December 1909) was an Italians, Italian zoologist and anthropologist. Giglioli was born in London and first studied there. He obtained a degree in science at the University of Pisa in 1864 and started ...

in 1869 and named in honour of the Italian zoologist Professor Filippo de Filippi. Both these naturalists took part in an Italian government-sponsored scientific voyage to

circumnavigate Circumnavigation is the complete navigation around an entire island, continent, or astronomical body (e.g. a planet or moon). This article focuses on the circumnavigation of Earth. The first recorded circumnavigation of the Earth was the Magel ...

the world in 1866. The vessel returned successfully to

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

in 1868 but de Filippi died in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

from

dysentery Dysentery (UK pronunciation: , US: ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complications ...

during the previous year. Giglioli took over the scientific work of the expedition after the professor's death.

Description

Masatierra petrel grows to a length of about . Its cap and mask are dark grey while its forehead is white. It has dark grey plumage on its upperparts with a distinctive "M" mark, a paler grey partial collar and a white throat, belly and under wing-coverts. When seen from below, the wings have black tips and black trailing edges.

Distribution

Masatierra petrel spends the greatest part of the year at sea in the eastern Pacific Ocean south of the equator where the Humboldt Current causes a major

upwelling Upwelling is an oceanographic phenomenon that involves wind-driven motion of dense, cooler, and usually nutrient-rich water from deep water towards the ocean surface. It replaces the warmer and usually nutrient-depleted surface water. The nutr ...

of nutrient-rich cold water. Here the bird feeds by skimming across the surface of the water and scooping up

prey Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill the ...

on the wing. It nests in two island groups off the coast of Chile. On the

, the largest

colony In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the ''metropole, metropolit ...

is on San Ambrosio where more than 10,000 birds were estimated to be present in 1970. San Félix also had 150 to 200 nesting pairs at that time. On the

, the bird is no longer believed to be nesting on

Robinson Crusoe Island Robinson Crusoe Island ( es, Isla Róbinson Crusoe, ), formerly known as Más a Tierra (), is the second largest of the Juan Fernández Islands, situated 670 km (362 nmi; 416 mi) west of San Antonio, Chile, in the South Pacific Oc ...

but

Santa Clara Island Santa Clara Island ( es, Isla Santa Clara) is a tiny, uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Robinson Crusoe Island in a group of islands known as the Juan Fernández Islands. The island is of volcanic origin and is approximately ...

had a few hundred birds present in 1991, a number not likely to increase because there is limited availability of suitable nesting sites on the island.

Status

Masatierra petrel is a bird of the open ocean but returns to islands off the coast of Chile to breed on cliff ledges. The total number of birds may be fewer than 20,000 and the

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

, in its

Red List of Threatened Species The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biologi ...

, lists it as " Vulnerable". This is because of the small number of birds and limited breeding range, and the fact that land-based

predators Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill the ...

such as

feral cat A feral cat or a stray cat is an unowned domestic cat (''Felis catus'') that lives outdoors and avoids human contact: it does not allow itself to be handled or touched, and usually remains hidden from humans. Feral cats may breed over dozens ...

s and

coati Coatis, also known as coatimundis (), are members of the family Procyonidae in the genera ''Nasua'' and ''Nasuella''. They are diurnal mammals native to South America, Central America, Mexico, and the southwestern United States. The name "c ...

s eat the eggs and young, and are believed to have caused the bird's extinction on Robinson Crusoe Island. Rats are also believed to be predators.

References

External links

BirdLife Species Factsheet.
{{Taxonbar, from=Q903357

Masatierra petrel Masatierra petrel (''Pterodroma defilippiana'') or De Filippi's petrel, is a species of seabird in the family Procellariidae. It is endemic to Chile where it nests in the Juan Fernández Islands (including Masatierra) and Desventuradas Islands. I ...

Birds of Chile Juan Fernández Islands

Taxonomy articles created by Polbot