Puffinus Puffinus Puffinus is a genus of seabirds in the order Procellariiformes. It comprises about 20 small to medium-sized shearwaters. Two other shearwater genera are named: "Calonectris", which comprises three or four large shearwaters, and "Ardenna" with another seven species (formerly often included within "Puffinus"). "Puffinus" is a New Latin loanword based on the English "puffin". The original Latin term for shearwaters was usually the catchall name for sea-birds, "mergus". "Puffin" and its variants, such as poffin, pophyn and puffing, referred to the cured carcass of the fat nestling of the shearwater, a former delicacy. The original usage dates from at
Bannerman's shearwater Bannerman's shearwater Bannerman's shearwater ("Puffinus bannermani") is a seabird in the Procellariidae family formerly considered conspecific with Audubon's shearwater ("Puffinus lherminieri"). Little is known of this species other than that it breeds in the Volcano Islands in the Ogasawara Group to the southwest of Japan and doesn't seem to range far from this area. The species population size has not been estimated but is assessed to be decreasing. Not much is known about this species and more research is required to obtain an understanding of its ecology. Based on the ecology of closely related species, "P. bannermani" is thought likely