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The thick-billed murre or Brünnich's guillemot (''Uria lomvia'') is a
bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...
in the
auk Auks or alcids are birds of the family Alcidae in the order Charadriiformes. The alcid family includes the Uria, murres, guillemots, Aethia, auklets, puffins, and Brachyramphus, murrelets. The family contains 25 extant or recently extinct speci ...
family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...
(Alcidae). This bird is named after the Danish zoologist
Morten Thrane Brünnich Morten Thrane Brünnich (30 September 1737 – 19 September 1827) was a Danish zoologist and mineralogist. Biography Brünnich was born in Copenhagen, the son of a portrait painter. He studied oriental languages and theology, but soon became i ...
. The very deeply black
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 the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...
subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...
''Uria lomvia arra'' is also called Pallas' murre after its describer.


Taxonomy

The thick-billed murre was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist
Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...
in the tenth edition of his ''
Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the Orthographic ligature, ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Sweden, Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the syste ...
''. He placed it with the other auks in the
genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...
'' Alca'' and coined the
binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, altho ...
''Alca lomvia''. Linnaeus specified the type locality as boreal Europe but this was restricted in 1921 to
Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...
by the German ornithologist
Ernst Hartert Ernst Johann Otto Hartert (29 October 1859 – 11 November 1933) was a widely published German ornithologist. Life and career Hartert was born in the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg on 29 October 1859. In July 1891, he married the illustrat ...
. The thick-billed murre is now placed together with the
common murre The common murre or common guillemot (''Uria aalge'') is a large auk. It has a Subarctic, 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 ...
in the genus ''
Uria ''Uria'' is a genus of seabirds in the auk family known in Europe as guillemots, in most of North America as murres, and in Newfoundland and Labrador as turr. These are medium-sized birds with mainly brown or black plumage in the breeding sea ...
'' that was introduced in 1760 by the French zoologist
Mathurin Jacques Brisson Mathurin Jacques Brisson (; 30 April 1723 – 23 June 1806) was a French zoologist and natural philosophy, natural philosopher. Brisson was born on 30 April 1723 at Fontenay-le-Comte in the Vendée department of western France. Note that page 14 ...
. The genus name is from
Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
''ouria'', a waterbird mentioned by
Athenaeus Athenaeus of Naucratis (, or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; ) was an ancient Greek rhetorician and Grammarian (Greco-Roman), grammarian, flourishing about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century ...
. The specific epithet ''lomvia'' is a Swedish word for an auk or diver. The English "guillemot" is from French ''guillemot'' probably derived from ''Guillaume'', "William". "Murre" is of uncertain origins, but may imitate the call of the common guillemot. Four
subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...
are recognised: * ''U. l. lomvia'' (
Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...
, 1758) – coastal northeast, southeast Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Jan Mayen (northeast of Iceland), north Scandinavia,
Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), previously known as Spitsbergen or Spitzbergen, is a Norway, Norwegian archipelago that lies at the convergence of the Arctic Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean. North of continental Europe, mainland Europe, it lies about midway be ...
(north of Norway) to
Novaya Zemlya Novaya Zemlya (, also , ; , ; ), also spelled , is an archipelago in northern Russia. It is situated in the Arctic Ocean, in the extreme northeast of Europe, with Cape Flissingsky, on the northern island, considered the extreme points of Europe ...
(northwest Russia) * ''U. l. eleonorae'' Portenko, 1937 – coastal east
Taymyr Peninsula The Taymyr Peninsula ( ) is a peninsula in the Far North of Russia, in the Siberian Federal District, that forms the northernmost part of the mainland of Eurasia. Administratively it is part of the Krasnoyarsk Krai Federal subject of Russia. Ge ...
to
New Siberian Islands The New Siberian Islands (; ) are an archipelago in the Extreme North of Russia, to the north of the East Siberian coast between the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea north of the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic, of whose Bulunsky District they ar ...
(central north Russia) * ''U. l. heckeri'' Portenko, 1944 – Wrangel and Herald Islands (north of northeast Siberia) and
Chukchi Peninsula The Chukchi Peninsula (also Chukotka Peninsula or Chukotski Peninsula; , ''Chukotskiy poluostrov'', short form , ''Chukotka''), at about 66° N 172° W, is the easternmost peninsula of Asia. Its eastern end is at Cape Dezhnev near the village ...
(northeast Siberia) * ''U. l. arra'' (
Pallas Pallas may refer to: Astronomy * 2 Pallas asteroid ** Pallas family, a group of asteroids that includes 2 Pallas * Pallas (crater), a crater on Earth's moon Mythology * Pallas (Giant), a son of Uranus and Gaia, killed and flayed by Athena * Pa ...
, 1811) – coastal
Kamchatka Peninsula The Kamchatka Peninsula (, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and western coastlines, respectively. Immediately offshore along the Pacific ...
,
Sea of Okhotsk The Sea of Okhotsk; Historically also known as , or as ; ) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It is located between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, Japan's island of Hokkaido on the sou ...
,
Kuril Islands The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands are a volcanic archipelago administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the Russian Far East. The islands stretch approximately northeast from Hokkaido in Japan to Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, separating the ...
and
Commander Islands The Commander Islands, Komandorski Islands, or Komandorskie Islands (, ''Komandorskiye ostrova'') are a series of islands in the Russian Far East, a part of the Aleutian Islands, located about east of the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Bering Sea. ...
(east Russia),
Aleutian Islands The Aleutian Islands ( ; ; , "land of the Aleuts"; possibly from the Chukchi language, Chukchi ''aliat'', or "island")—also called the Aleut Islands, Aleutic Islands, or, before Alaska Purchase, 1867, the Catherine Archipelago—are a chain ...
, west, southeast Alaska, north
Yukon Yukon () is a Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada, bordering British Columbia to the south, the Northwest Territories to the east, the Beaufort Sea to the north, and the U.S. state of Alaska to the west. It is Canada’s we ...
(northwest Canada)


Description

Since the
extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...
ion of the
great auk The great auk (''Pinguinus impennis''), also known as the penguin or garefowl, is an Extinction, extinct species of flightless bird, flightless auk, alcid that first appeared around 400,000 years ago and Bird extinction, became extinct in the ...
in the mid-19th century, the murres are the largest living members of the
Alcidae Auks or alcids are birds of the family Alcidae in the order Charadriiformes. The alcid family includes the murres, guillemots, auklets, puffins, and murrelets. The family contains 25 extant or recently extinct species that are divided into ...
.Nettleship (1996) The thick-billed murre and the closely related
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 ...
(or common murre, ''U. aalge'') are similarly sized, but the thick-billed still bests the other species in both average and maximum size. The thick-billed murre measures in total length, spans across the wings and weighs . The Pacific race (''U. l. arra'') is larger than the Atlantic race, especially in bill dimensions.Gaston & Jones (1998) Adult birds are black on the head, neck, back and wings with white underparts. The bill is long and pointed. They have a small rounded black tail. The lower face becomes white in winter. This species produces a variety of harsh cackling calls at the breeding
colonies A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their '' metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often or ...
, but is silent at sea. They differ from the common murre in their thicker, shorter bill with white
gape The beak, bill, or rostrum is an external anatomical structure found mostly in birds, but also in turtles, non-avian dinosaurs and a few mammals. A beak is used for pecking, grasping, and holding (in probing for food, eating, manipulating and ca ...
stripe and their darker head and back; the "bridled" morph is unknown in ''U. lomvia'' – a murre has either a white eye-stripe, or a white bill-stripe, or neither, but never both; it may be that this is
character displacement Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to Theoph ...
, enabling individual birds to recognize
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 organism ...
s at a distance in the densely packed breeding colonies as the bridled morph is most common by far in North Atlantic colonies where both species of guillemots breed. In winter, there is less white on the thick-billed murre's face. They look shorter than the common murre in flight. First year birds have smaller bills than adults and the white line on the bill is often obscure, making the bill an unreliable way to identify them at this age. The head pattern is the best way to distinguish first-year birds from common murres.Gaston (1984)


Distribution and habitat

The thick-billed murre is distributed across the polar and sub-polar regions of the
Northern Hemisphere The Northern Hemisphere is the half of Earth that is north of the equator. For other planets in the Solar System, north is defined by humans as being in the same celestial sphere, celestial hemisphere relative to the invariable plane of the Solar ...
where four
subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...
exist; one lives on the
Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...
and
Arctic ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five oceanic divisions. It spans an area of approximately and is the coldest of the world's oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, ...
s of
North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...
(''U. l. lomvia''), another on the
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 the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...
coast of
North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...
(''U. l. arra''), and two others that inhabit the
Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
n arctic (''U. l. eleonorae'' and ''U. heckeri''). Thick-billed murres spend all of their lives at sea in waters which remain below 5
°C The degree Celsius is the unit of temperature on the Celsius temperature scale "Celsius temperature scale, also called centigrade temperature scale, scale based on 0 ° for the melting point of water and 100 ° for the boiling point ...
, except during the breeding season where they form dense colonies on cliffs. They
move Move or The Move may refer to: Brands and enterprises * Move (company), an American online real estate company * Move (electronics store), a defunct Australian electronics retailer * Daihatsu Move, a Japanese car * PlayStation Move, a motion ...
south in winter into northernmost areas of the north
Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...
and
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 the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...
, but only to keep in ice-free waters.


As a vagrant

Brünnich's guillemot is a rare vagrant in European countries south of the breeding range. In Britain, over 30 individuals have been recorded, but over half of these were tideline corpses. Of those that were seen alive, only three have remained long enough to be seen by large numbers of observers. All three were in
Shetland Shetland (until 1975 spelled Zetland), also called the Shetland Islands, is an archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands, and Norway, marking the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the ...
- winter individuals in February 1987 and November/December 2005, and a bird in an auk colony in summer 1989. The 1989 and 2005 birds were both found by the same observer, Martin Heubeck. The species has been recorded once in
Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
, and has also been recorded in the
Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
. In the western Atlantic, they may range as far as Florida, and in the Pacific to California. Before 1950, large numbers appeared on the North American Great Lakes in early winter, passing up the St. Lawrence River from the East coast. Such irruptions have not been seen since 1952.


Behaviour and ecology


Breeding

Thick-billed murres form vast breeding colonies, sometimes composed of over a million breeding birds, on narrow ledges and steep cliffs which face the water. They have the smallest territory of any bird, requiring less than one
square foot The square foot (; abbreviated sq ft, sf, or ft2; also denoted by '2 and ⏍) is an imperial unit and U.S. customary unit (non- SI, non-metric) of area, used mainly in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pa ...
per individual. A breeding pair will lay a single egg each year. Despite this, they are one of the most abundant marine birds in the Northern Hemisphere. Adults perform communal displays early in the breeding season to time their breeding cycles. They do not build nests, but lay the egg directly on bare rock. Both parents are involved in incubating the egg and raising the young.Gaston AJ, Nettleship DN. (1981). ''The Thick-billed Murres of Prince Leopold Island: A study of the breeding ecology of a colonial high Arctic seabird.'' Ottawa: Environment Canada, Canadian Wildlife Service. Due to the enormous amount of energy needed to take off in flight, adults can only provide one food item at a time to their chick. Chicks spend between 18 and 25 days on the cliffs before leaving for the sea. Once ready to leave, the young will await nightfall and jump off the edge towards the water. A parent immediately jumps after and glides within centimeters of the fledgling. At sea, the male and the chick stay together for around 8 weeks during which the adult continues to provide food for the young. Survival rates of the young is not based on the number of individuals in the colony, but rather on the age of the breeders within the colony. Offspring of inexperienced pairs grow more slowly than those of experienced breeders, possibly because they do not receive as much food from their parents. Also, pairs which contain at least one young breeding bird tend to have lower hatch rates. Older and experienced adults obtain the better nesting sites located in the center of the colony, while the inexperienced individuals are kept on the margins where their young are more likely to be preyed upon.


Food and feeding

The thick-billed murre's flight is strong and direct, and they have fast wing beats due to the short wings. Like the other auks, these birds forage for food by using their wings to 'swim' underwater. They are accomplished divers, reaching depths of up to 150 m and diving for up to four minutes at a time; usually however birds make either shallow short dives or dive down to 21–40 m for longer periods. While hunting, the diving trajectory resembles a flattened 'U'. Birds will make long trips to get to favorite feeding grounds; while they usually forage several dozen km from their nest sites, they often travel more than 100 km to fish. The strong and direct flight of murres, which is, for their body size, the most costly form of sustained locomotion of any animal, is a result of their short wingspan. The diving depths and durations regularly achieved by these birds indicate that they, and similar auks, have some—as yet unknown—mechanism to avoid diving sickness and lung collapse when surfacing. It is postulated that auks temporarily absorb excess gases into the vascular structure of their bones. From there, it is gradually released from temporary storage in a controlled process of decompression. The nominate race feeds primarily on fish such as ''
Gadus ''Gadus'' is a genus of demersal fish in the family Gadidae, commonly known as cod, although there are additional cod species in other genera. The best known member of the genus is the Atlantic cod The Atlantic cod (: cod; ''Gadus morhua'') ...
spp.'' and Arctic cod (''
Boreogadus saida ''Boreogadus saida'', known as the polar cod or as the Arctic cod, is a fish of the cod family Gadidae, related to the true cod (genus ''Gadus''). Another fish species for which both the common names Arctic cod and polar cod are used is ''Arcto ...
''), as well as the pelagic
amphipod Amphipoda () is an order of malacostracan crustaceans with no carapace and generally with laterally compressed bodies. Amphipods () range in size from and are mostly detritivores or scavengers. There are more than 10,700 amphipod species cur ...
''Parathemisto libellula''. Other fish such as
capelin The capelin or caplin (''Mallotus villosus'') is a small forage fish of the smelt family found in the North Atlantic, North Pacific and Arctic oceans. In summer, it grazes on dense swarms of plankton at the edge of the ice shelf. Larger capel ...
(''Mallotus villosus'') and ''
Myoxocephalus ''Myoxocephalus'' is a genus of marine ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Cottidae, the typical sculpins. They are found in the northern Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, with a few species in lakes. Taxonomy ''Myoxocephalus'' was firs ...
spp.'', as well as other
crustacean Crustaceans (from Latin meaning: "those with shells" or "crusted ones") are invertebrate animals that constitute one group of arthropods that are traditionally a part of the subphylum Crustacea (), a large, diverse group of mainly aquatic arthrop ...
s,
polychaete Polychaeta () is a paraphyletic class of generally marine Annelid, annelid worms, common name, commonly called bristle worms or polychaetes (). Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia that bear many bristles, called c ...
s, and a few
mollusc Mollusca is a phylum of protostome, protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum ...
s, are found in their diet but in relatively low numbers. When wintering near
Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region of Labrador, having a total size of . As of 2025 the population ...
,
capelin The capelin or caplin (''Mallotus villosus'') is a small forage fish of the smelt family found in the North Atlantic, North Pacific and Arctic oceans. In summer, it grazes on dense swarms of plankton at the edge of the ice shelf. Larger capel ...
can account for over 90 percent of their diet.


Predators

Thick-billed murres have few natural predators because the immense number of concentrated birds found on the breeding colonies and the inaccessibility of these breeding sites make it extremely difficult for them to be preyed upon. Their main predator is the
glaucous gull The glaucous gull (''Larus hyperboreus'') is a large gull, the second-largest gull in the world. The genus name is from Latin , which appears to have referred to a gull or other large seabird. The specific name is Latin for "northern" from the A ...
(''Larus hyperboreus''), and these feed exclusively on eggs and chicks. The
common raven The common raven or northern raven (''Corvus corax'') is a large all-black passerine bird. It is the most widely distributed of all Corvidae, corvids, found across the Northern Hemisphere. There are 11 accepted subspecies with little variatio ...
(''Corvus corax'') may also try to obtain eggs and hatchlings when they are left unattended.


Status and conservation

Although declines have been observed in many parts of their range, the thick-billed murre is not a species of concern as the total population is estimated to contain between 15 and 20 million individuals worldwide. Egg harvesting and hunting of adult birds are major threats in Greenland, where populations fell steeply between the 1960s and 1980s. In the Barents Sea region, the species has declined locally, due to influences associated with polar stations in Russia. Fisheries may also be a threat, but because thick-billed murres are better able to use alternative food sources the effect of over-fishing is not as severe as on the common murre. Pollution from oil at sea exerts another major threat. Murres are among the seabirds most sensitive to oil contamination. Incidental mortality brought on by entanglement with fishing gear is also an important cause of population decline. Thick-billed murres are closely associated with sea-ice throughout the year. Consequently, some scientists believe that
climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...
may be a threat to this Arctic-breeding species. However the species seems adaptable. Populations at the southern edge of their range switched from feeding on ice-associated
Arctic cod ''Arctogadus glacialis'', known also with ambiguous common names Arctic cod and polar cod, is an Arctic species of fish in the cod Family (biology), family Gadidae, related to the true Gadus, cod (genus ''Gadus''). ''Arctogadus glacialis'' is fo ...
to warmer-water
capelin The capelin or caplin (''Mallotus villosus'') is a small forage fish of the smelt family found in the North Atlantic, North Pacific and Arctic oceans. In summer, it grazes on dense swarms of plankton at the edge of the ice shelf. Larger capel ...
as ice break-up became earlier. Dates for egg-laying advanced with the earlier disappearance of ice. The growth of chicks is slower in years when ice break-up is early relative to egg-laying by the murres. In extremely warm years,
mosquito Mosquitoes, the Culicidae, are a Family (biology), family of small Diptera, flies consisting of 3,600 species. The word ''mosquito'' (formed by ''Musca (fly), mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish and Portuguese for ''little fly''. Mos ...
es and heat kill some breeders.Gaston ''et al.'' (2002), Parmesan (2006)


References


Sources

* * Evans, Peter, G.H & Kampp, K. (1991): Recent changes in Thick-billed Murre populations. ''In:'' Gaston, A.J & Elliot, R.D. (eds.): Studies of high-latitude seabirds: 2. Conservation biology of Thick-billed Murres in the Northwestern Atlantic. ''Canadian Wildlife Service Occasional Paper'' 69: 7–14. * * * Gaston, Anthony J.; Nettleship, David N. (1981): The Thick-billed murres of Prince Leopold Island. Canadian Wildlife Service Monograph No. 6, Environment Canada, Ottawa. * Gaston, Anthony J.; Jones, Ian L. (1998): The Auks: Alcidae, Bird Families of the World, Oxford: Oxford University Press. * * * * Lilliendahl, K.; Solmundsson, J.; Gudmundsson, G.A. & Taylor, L. (2003): Can surveillance radar be used to monitor the foraging distribution of colonially breeding alcids? nglish with Spanish abstract''
Condor Condor is the common name for two species of New World vultures, each in a monotypic genus. The name derives from the Quechua language, Quechua ''kuntur''. They are the largest flying land birds in the Western Hemisphere. One species, the And ...
'' 105(1): 145–150. DOI: 10.1650/0010-5422(2003)105 45:CSRBUT.0.CO;2HTML abstract
!-
PDF fulltext
ink dead 2008-JAN-12--> * Nettleship, David N. (1996): 3. Thick-billed Murre. ''In:'' del Hoyo, Josep; Elliott, Andrew & Sargatal, Jordi (eds.) (1996), ''
Handbook of Birds of the World The ''Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) is a multi-volume series produced by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions in partnership with BirdLife International. It is the first handbook to cover every known living species of bird. ...
'' (Volume 3: Hoatzin to Auks): 710–711, plate 59. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. * * *


External links

* * {{Authority control Uria Birds of the Arctic Birds of the Aleutian Islands Birds described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Holarctic birds