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
Tropical shearwater subspecies thought to number 3,000–5,000 pairs on Réunion and fewer than 100 individuals on Europa (reviewed by Brooke 2004), though it is thought there are many more breeding colonies on other islands in the Pacific. The population seems to be stable. Tropical shearwater The tropical shearwater ("Puffinus bailloni") is a seabird in the family Procellariidae formerly considered conspecific with Audubon's shearwater ("Puffinus lherminieri"). There are five listed subspecies of the tropical shearwater: The tropical shearwater is found in the tropical parts of the western Indian Ocean from east Africa to southern India and in similar regions of the Pacific from