Balearic shearwater Balearic shearwater The Balearic shearwater ("Puffinus mauretanicus") is a medium-sized shearwater in the seabird family "Procellariidae". "Puffinus" is a New Latin loanword based on the English "puffin" and its variants, such as poffin, pophyn and puffing, that referred to the cured carcass of the fat nestling of the Manx shearwater, a former delicacy. The specific "mauretanicus" refers to Mauretania, an old name for an area of North Africa roughly corresponding to Morocco and Algeria. It was long regarded a subspecies of the Manx shearwater (see there for more on the "Puffinus puffinus" superspecies); following an initial split it was held
Giannutri in the northern part which become "garrigue" in the southern. Plants as "arbutus", "Myrtus", "pistacia lentiscus", mock privet, Mediterranean buckthorn, "juniperus phoenicea" and "limonium sommierianum" knew only on Isola del Giglio and Montecristo, grow up on the island. The mild climate has favoured the growth of plants such as "euphorbia", palm trees and wild orchids. The marine flora is abundant in sponges, madreporaria, black coral and red coral. The island, as all that of the Tuscan Archipelago, is a place where the bird migration take a stop along their seasonal movement from North to South. The Audouin's gull, Puffinus yelkouan,