Great auk (Pen Gwyn in Welsh), or, because the great auk had such large white circles on its head. When European explorers discovered what today are known as penguins in the Southern Hemisphere, they noticed their similar appearance to the great auk and named them after this bird, although biologically, they are not closely related. Whalers also lumped the northern and southern birds together under the common name "woggins". Standing about tall and weighing approximately as adult birds, the flightless great auk was the second-largest member of both its family and the order Charadriiformes, surpassed only by the mancalline "Miomancalla". The great
Flightless cormorant Flightless cormorant The flightless cormorant ("Phalacrocorax harrisi"), also known as the Galapagos cormorant, is a cormorant native to the Galapagos Islands, and an example of the highly unusual fauna there. It is unique in that it is the only cormorant that has lost the ability to fly. Once it was placed in its own genus, "Nannopterum" or "Compsohalieus", although current taxonomy places it in the genus with most of the other cormorants, "Phalacrocorax". Like all cormorants, this bird has webbed feet and powerful legs that propel it through ocean waters as it seeks its prey of fish, eels, small octopuses,