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
Storrs L. Olson world's foremost paleornithologists. He was also the 1994 recipient of the Loye and Alden Miller Research Award. He was formerly curator of birds at the United States National Museum of Natural History; , he holds an emeritus position in the institution. Several prehistoric bird species have been named after Olson, including "Nycticorax olsoni", "Himantopus olsoni", "Puffinus olsoni", "Primobucco olsoni", "Gallirallus storrsolsoni", and "Quercypodargus olsoni". Storrs L. Olson Storrs Lovejoy Olson (born April 3, 1944) is an American biologist and ornithologist who spent his career the Smithsonian Institution, retiring in 2008. One of the world's foremost avian paleontologists, he is best