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
Procellariidae with "Pseudobulweria" being phylogenetically closer to the "Puffinus" shearwaters than the "Pterodroma" gadfly petrels, and "Aphrodroma" (the Kerguelen petrel) possibly being closely related to the shearwaters or the fulmars. The prions, according to Nunn and Stanley, were among the larger shearwater group. The "Calonectris" shearwaters were placed close to the two "Puffinus" clades (closer to the Puffinus, or small, clade) and both were distant to the "Procellaria" shearwaters. The relationships between the genera and within the genera are still the subject of debate, with researchers lumping and splitting the species and genera within the family and arguing about the position