The Kerguelen petrel (''Aphrodroma brevirostris'') is a small (36 cm long) slate-grey

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 Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

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 als ...

. It is the only species placed in the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

''Aphrodroma''. It is a pelagic, circumpolar seabird of the

Southern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is regarded as the second-small ...

. It breeds on islands in the southern Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

Taxonomy

The Kerguelen petrel was formally described in 1831 by the French naturalist René Lesson. He placed it in the

Procellaria Procellaria is a genus of Southern Ocean long-winged seabirds related to prions, and within the order Procellariiformes. The black petrel (''Procellaria parkinsoni'') ranges in the Pacific Ocean, and as far north as Central America. The specta ...

'' that had been erected for the petrels by

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his Nobility#Ennoblement, ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalise ...

in 1758 and coined the binomial name ''Procellaria brevirostris''. The Kerguelen petrel was formerly included with the gadfly petrels in the genus '' Pterodroma'' but is now placed in the genus ''Aphrodroma'' that was introduced for the Kerguelen petrel by Storrs L. Olson in 2000. The name ''Aphrodroma'' combines the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

''aphros'' meaning "sea foam" with ''-dromos'' meaning "-racer".The specific epithet ''brevirostris'' is from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''brevis'' meaning "short" and ''-rostris'' meaning "-billed". The species is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispe ...

: no subspecies are recognised.

Breeding

Kerguelen petrels breed colonially on remote islands; colonies are present on Gough Island in 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 ...

, and Marion Island, Prince Edward Island, Crozet Islands and

Kerguelen Island The Kerguelen Islands ( or ; in French commonly ' but officially ', ), also known as the Desolation Islands (' in French), are a group of islands in the sub-Antarctic constituting one of the two exposed parts of the Kerguelen Plateau, a large ...

in the Indian Ocean. The species attends its colonies nocturnally, breeding in burrows in wet soil. The burrows usually face away from the

prevailing wind In meteorology, prevailing wind in a region of the Earth's surface is a surface wind that blows predominantly from a particular direction. The dominant winds are the trends in direction of wind with the highest speed over a particular point o ...

. A single egg is laid per breeding season; the egg is unusually round for the family. The egg is incubated by both parents for 49 days. After hatching the chick fledges after 60 days.

References

External links

Kerguelen Petrel Photos

Specimens of the Kerguelen Petrel in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
Kerguelen petrel Kerguelen petrel Birds of subantarctic islands Fauna of the Kerguelen Islands Fauna of the Crozet Islands Fauna of Gough Island Fauna of the Prince Edward Islands Kerguelen petrel Taxa named by René Lesson {{FrenchSouthernTerritories-stub