Townsend's shearwater Townsend's shearwater The Townsend's shearwater, "Puffinus auricularis", is a rare seabird of the tropics from the family Procellariidae. Its relationships are unresolved. Its closest relatives are probably, but not certainly, the Hawaiian shearwater ("Puffinus newelli") and possibly the Manx shearwater ("Puffinus puffinus") (Austin, 1996; Austin "et al.", 2004). It formerly contained the former as a subspecies and was long considered a subspecies of the latter. The relationship of the Rapa shearwater, "P. myrtae" in regard to these species are also in need of research; this taxon was until recently placed in "P. assimilis" (Austin "et al.", 2004), but now raised
Audubon's shearwater homogeneous north-western Indian Ocean range, but not in the ecologically more diverse and by far larger Pacific range of "dichrous". These unresolved problems notwithstanding, this clade – possibly including the preceding one – has been proposed to constitute a separate species, the tropical shearwater or Baillon's shearwater, "Puffinus bailloni". These taxa could not be included in the most recent studies due to lack of material. The case of "gunax" seems fairly straightforward – as certainly as this can possibly be said in the absence of new data, it belongs to the "bailloni" clade either as a distinct subspecies, or, more