''Synthliboramphus'' is a small

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 ...

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 envir ...

s in the

auk An auk or alcid is a bird of the family Alcidae in the order Charadriiformes. The alcid family includes the murres, guillemots, auklets, puffins, and murrelets. The word "auk" is derived from Icelandic ''álka'', from Old Norse ''alka'' (a ...

family from the

North Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. The genus name ''Synthliboramphus'' is from

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 pe ...

''sunthlibo'', "to compress", and ''rhamphos'', "bill". The English name "Murrelet" is a diminutive of "murre", a word of uncertain origins, but which may imitate the call of the

common guillemot The common murre or common guillemot (''Uria aalge'') is a large auk. It has a circumpolar distribution, occurring in low-Arctic and boreal waters in the North Atlantic and North Pacific. It spends most of its time at sea, only coming to land to ...

Taxonomy

The genus ''Synthliboramphus'' was introduced in 1837 by the German born naturalist

Johann Friedrich von Brandt Johann Friedrich von Brandt (25 May 1802 – 15 July 1879) was a German-Russian naturalist, who worked mostly in Russia. Brandt was born in Jüterbog and educated at a gymnasium in Wittenberg and the University of Berlin. In 1831 he emigrat ...

. The

type genus In biological taxonomy, the type genus is the genus which defines a biological family and the root of the family name. Zoological nomenclature According to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, "The name-bearing type of a nominal ...

was subsequently designated by

George Robert Gray George Robert Gray FRS (8 July 1808 – 6 May 1872) was an English zoologist and author, and head of the ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, in London for forty-one years. He was the younger brother ...

as the

ancient murrelet The ancient murrelet (') is a bird in the auk family. The English term "murrelet" is a diminutive of "murre", a word of uncertain origins, but which may imitate the call of the common guillemot. Ancient murrelets are called "ancient" because th ...

. The genus name combines

''sunthlibō'' meaning "to compress" with ''rhamphos'' meaning "bill". The genus contains five species: The first two species were formally considered

conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organis ...

, and are sometimes separated in the genus ''Endomychura''.

Fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

remains of two prehistoric species are known: an undescribed ''Synthliboramphus'' sp. from the Late Miocene or Early Pliocene (c. 5 mya) of

Cedros Island Cedros Island (''Isla de Cedros'', "island of cedars" in Spanish) is an island in the Pacific Ocean belonging to the state of Baja California, Mexico. The dry and rocky island had a population of 1,350 in 2005 and has an area of which include ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

, and ''Synthliboramphus rineyi'' from the

Late Pliocene Late may refer to: * LATE, an acronym which could stand for: ** Limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy, a proposed form of dementia ** Local-authority trading enterprise, a New Zealand business law ** Local average treatment effe ...

(around 3.5-2 mya)

San Diego Formation The San Diego Formation is a geologic formation in southwestern San Diego County in southern California (United States), and northwestern Baja California (México). Geology It is a coastal transitional marine and non-marine pebble and cobble ...

of the southwestern USA. These birds breed in colonies, their eggs being laid directly amongst tree roots or in rock crevices. They are nocturnal on the breeding grounds, presumably to reduce predation, and for the same reason the

precocial In biology, altricial species are those in which the young are underdeveloped at the time of birth, but with the aid of their parents mature after birth. Precocial species are those in which the young are relatively mature and mobile from the mome ...

young are never fed at the nest, being taken to sea a couple of days after hatching. The parents call to the young from out at sea, and the chicks swim towards the adults who keep moving further out throughout the night. ''Synthliboramphus'' species disperse out to sea after breeding, with northern species migrating further south. ''Synthliboramphus'' auks are small, with mainly black upper parts and white the short wings. These birds forage for food like other auks, by swimming underwater. They mainly eat

fish Fish are Aquatic animal, aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack Limb (anatomy), limbs with Digit (anatomy), digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and Chondrichthyes, cartilaginous and bony fish as we ...

, also some

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapoda, decapods, ostracoda, seed shrimp, branchiopoda, branchiopods, argulidae, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopoda, isopods, barnacles, copepods, ...

s and other small

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chorda ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q287293 Auks Bird genera