Yelkouan shearwater Menorca. A study of these birds recommended that a combination of morphological characteristics and DNA sequence data should be required at least for scientific purposes to assign individual birds to either species. It was formerly considered a subspecies of the Manx shearwater (see there for more on the "Puffinus puffinus" superspecies). After the first split, it was the nominate subspecies of the so-called "Mediterranean shearwater" for nearly ten more years; it is considered a monotypic species now, as the Balearic form "mauretanicus" has been separated as the Balearic shearwater. The yelkouan shearwater appears to belong to a group of Mediterranean
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,