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
Bryan's shearwater Bryan's shearwater The Bryan's shearwater ("Puffinus bryani") is a species of shearwater that may occur around the Hawaiian Islands. It is the smallest species of shearwater and is black and white with a bluish gray beak and blue tarsi. First collected in 1963 and thought to be a little shearwater ("Puffinus assimilis") it was determined using DNA analysis to be distinct in 2011. It is rare and possibly threatened and there is little information on its breeding or non-breeding ranges. It is named after Edwin Horace Bryan Jr. a former curator of the B. P. Bishop Museum at Honolulu. On