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
Dune shearwater which bred in lava fields. Extinction of the species occurred about 2000–3000 years ago, contemporaneously with the first human settlement of the islands by the Guanches, with the cause likely to be human predation. Dune shearwater The dune shearwater ("Puffinus holeae"), also known as the Canarian shearwater or Hole's shearwater, was a relatively large shearwater which bred in the Canary Islands archipelago of the North Atlantic Ocean. Fossils have also been found in the Figueira Brava cave archaeological site on the western coast of Portugal. The specific epithet honours Mrs Jean Hole who collected fossil material of the species on