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
Great shearwater can be seen in large numbers from ships or appropriate headlands. They have a piercing "eeyah" cry usually given when resting in groups on the water. Great shearwater The great shearwater ("Ardenna gravis"; formerly "Puffinus gravis") is a large shearwater in the seabird family Procellariidae. "Ardenna" was first used to refer to a seabird by Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi in 1603, and "gravis" is Latin for "heavy". The great shearwater's relationships are unclear. It belongs in the group of large species that have been separated as genus "Ardenna" (Penhallurick & Wink 2004); within these, it might be allied with the