The spectacled cormorant or Pallas's cormorant (''Urile perspicillatus'') is an

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 ...

marine

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 ...

of the

cormorant Phalacrocoracidae is a family of approximately 40 species of aquatic birds commonly known as cormorants and shags. Several different classifications of the family have been proposed, but in 2021 the International Ornithologists' Union (IOU) ado ...

family of

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

s that inhabited

Bering Island Bering Island () is located off the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Bering Sea. Description At long by wide, it is the largest and westernmost of the Commander Islands, with an area of . Most of Bering Island and several of the smaller islands in ...

and possibly other places in the

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. ...

and the nearby coast of

Kamchatka 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 ...

in the far northeast of

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 ...

. The modern distribution was shown to be a relict of a wider prehistoric distribution in 2018 when fossils of the species from 120,000 years ago were found in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. It is the largest species of

known to have existed.

Taxonomy

It was formerly classified in the genus ''

Phalacrocorax ''Phalacrocorax'' is a genus of fish-eating birds in the cormorant family Phalacrocoracidae. Members of this genus are also known as the Old World cormorants. Taxonomy The genus ''Phalacrocorax'' was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin ...

'', but in 2021, the

IOC The International Olympic Committee (IOC; , CIO) is the international, non-governmental, sports governing body of the modern Olympic Games. Founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas, it is based in L ...

reclassified it and several other Pacific cormorant species into the genus ''

Urile ''Urile'' is a genus of birds in the family Cormorant, Phalacrocoracidae, commonly known as North Pacific cormorants. It contains 3 extant and 1 recently extinct species, all of which are or were found in the Pacific Ocean, North Pacific Ocean. ...

'', based on a 2014 study that supported reclassifying the Brandt's, red-faced, and

pelagic The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean and can be further divided into regions by depth. The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or water column between the sur ...

cormorants into that genus. Although the spectacled cormorant was not mentioned in the 2014 study and its current taxonomic position is unresolvable by the current phylogenies, it was also reclassified into ''Urile'' based on its perceived relatedness to those species.

Description

The species was first identified by Georg Wilhelm Steller in 1741 on

Vitus Bering Vitus Jonassen Bering ( , , ; baptised 5 August 1681 – 19 December 1741),All dates are here given in the Julian calendar, which was in use throughout Russia at the time. also known as Ivan Ivanovich Bering (), was a Danish-born Russia ...

's disastrous second

expedition. He described the bird as large, clumsy and almost flightless – though it was probably reluctant to fly rather than physically unable – and wrote "they weighed 12–14 pounds, so that one single bird was sufficient for three starving men." Though cormorants are normally notoriously bad-tasting, Steller says that this bird tasted delicious, particularly when it was cooked in the way of the native

Kamchadals The Kamchadals (, ) inhabit Kamchatka, Russia. The name "Kamchadal" was originally applied to the descendants of the local Siberians and aboriginal peoples (the Itelmens, Ainu, Koryaks and Chuvans) who assimilated with the Russians. The desce ...

, who encased the whole bird in clay, buried it, and baked it in a heated pit. With a body mass estimated to be from and a length up to around , the spectacled cormorant was rather larger than all other known cormorants. In a similar fashion to the extant flightless cormorant, which may have rivaled it in length but not weight, the spectacled cormorant is thought to have at least largely lost the power of flight which is borne out by the reduced sternum and wing chord of museum specimens.King, R. J. (2013). ''The Devil's Cormorant: a Natural History''. University of New Hampshire Press. This species was largely glossy black in color with a reported greenish gloss that may have been fairly vivid in bright light. A contrasting large white patch could be seen on its lower flanks just above the legs. Like other cormorants, they had small patches of bare skin about the face including a small gular patch and a small amount of bare skin around the eyes; these areas usually appeared to have been dull-yellow or grayish in hue, but during breeding stages, they may have changed to a bright orangey-reddish hue. During breeding stages, they also had a prominent crest on their head. The bare skin around the eyes, as well as the crest, were not present in females.

Extinction

Apart from the fact that it fed on

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

, almost nothing else is known about the life history of this bird. The population declined quickly after further visitors to the area started collecting the birds for food and

feather Feathers are epidermal growths that form a distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on both avian (bird) and some non-avian dinosaurs and other archosaurs. They are the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates and an exa ...

s. Their reports of profitable

whaling Whaling is the hunting of whales for their products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that was important in the Industrial Revolution. Whaling was practiced as an organized industry as early as 875 AD. By the 16t ...

grounds and large populations of

Arctic fox The Arctic fox (''Vulpes lagopus''), also known as the white fox, polar fox, or snow fox, is a small species of fox native to the Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere and common throughout the Tundra#Arctic tundra, Arctic tundra biome. I ...

es and other animals with valuable pelts led to a massive influx of whalers and fur traders into the region; the last birds were reported to have lived around 1850 on Kamen Ariy ( ''Ariy Kamen''. Often misspelled "Aji Kamen" or even "Aii Kimur".) islet, off the northwestern tip of

. Only seven known specimens are currently preserved in public collections, with all specimens collected and given away by the same individual. None of these specimens are available on public display. A presumed prehistoric record from Amchitka Island,

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

, is based on misidentification of

double-crested cormorant The double-crested cormorant (''Nannopterum auritum'') is a member of the cormorant family of water birds. It is found near rivers and lakes and in coastal areas and is widely distributed across North America, from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska ...

remains.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q838117 Urile Bird extinctions since 1500 Birds described in 1811 Extinct birds of Asia Extinct animals of Russia Articles containing video clips Commander Islands Endemic fauna of Russia

Taxonomy

Description

Extinction

See also

References