Tristram's storm petrel or ''akihikeehiale'' (''Hydrobates tristrami'') is a species 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 ...

in the

storm petrel Storm petrel or stormy petrel may refer to one of two bird family (biology), families, both in the order Procellariiformes, once treated as the same family. The two families are: * Northern storm petrels (''Hydrobatidae'') are found in the No ...

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 ...

Hydrobatidae. The species' common and scientific name is derived from the English clergyman

Henry Baker Tristram Henry Baker Tristram FRS (11 May 1822 – 8 March 1906) was an English clergyman, Bible scholar, traveller and ornithologist. As a parson-naturalist he was an early, but short-lived, supporter of Darwinism, attempting to reconcile evolution an ...

; the species can also be known as the sooty storm petrel. Tristram's storm petrel has a distribution across the north

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, 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 ...

, predominantly in tropical seas. This storm petrel has long, angular wings. This is likely the largest member of the storm petrel family, with a total length , a wingspan of and a body mass of with average weights of . Its

plumage Plumage () is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, there can b ...

is all over dark with a slightly pale rump and a pale grey bar on the upper wing. The bill is stout as this is a species which feeds on small cephalopods. The species is colonial, nesting in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, and in several small islands south of

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 ...

, including the

Bonin Islands The Bonin Islands, also known as the , is a list of islands of Japan, Japanese archipelago of over 30 subtropical and Island#Tropical islands, tropical islands located around SSE of Tokyo and northwest of Guam. The group as a whole has a total ...

and Izu. Colonies are attended at night, and the species breeds during the winter. At sea, the species is

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 ...

, feeding on

squid A squid (: squid) is a mollusc with an elongated soft body, large eyes, eight cephalopod limb, arms, and two tentacles in the orders Myopsida, Oegopsida, and Bathyteuthida (though many other molluscs within the broader Neocoleoidea are also ...

and

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 ...

. Tristram's storm petrel is considered near threatened. All of its breeding colonies in Hawaii are protected areas, but the species has undergone declines in the past due to introduced rats on Torishima Island. In the early 21st century, the Tristam's storm petrel were included in a study of plastic ingestion by birds, at Tern Island in the French Frigate Shoals. The species is named after Reverend

, who also collected natural history specimens.

Taxonomy

The

holotype specimen A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was Species description, formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illus ...

of ''Oceanodroma tristrami'' Salvin
Cat.Bds.Brit.Mus., 25,1896, p.347
is held in the vertebrate zoology collection of

World Museum World Museum is a large museum in Liverpool, England which has extensive collections covering archaeology, ethnology and the natural and physical sciences. Special attractions include the Natural History Centre and a planetarium. Entry to the ...

National Museums Liverpool National Museums Liverpool, formerly National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, comprises several museums and art galleries in and around Liverpool in Merseyside, England. All the museums and galleries in the group have free admission. The mu ...

, with accession number NML-VZ T9781. The specimen was collected by Lieutenant Gunn at Sendai Bay, Japan, July 1874, and came to the Liverpool national collection through the purchase of

's collection. It was formerly defined in the genus ''

Oceanodroma Northern storm petrels are seabirds in the genus ''Hydrobates'' in the family Hydrobatidae, part of the order Procellariiformes. The family was once lumped with the similar austral storm petrels in the combined storm petrels, but have been spl ...

'' before that genus was synonymized with '' Hydrobates''.

References

* Brooke, M. (2004). ''Albatrosses And Petrels Across The World'' Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK {{Taxonbar, from=Q1262413 Tristram's storm petrel Birds of Hawaii Izu–Bonin–Mariana Arc Tristram's storm petrel Tristram's storm petrel Taxonomy articles created by Polbot