A wandering pigeon and a wingless auk ... Exterminated by man .... Wingless auk - a bird exterminated due to the fault of human stupidity and greed Wingless auk

Wingless auk

The bird's name is Pinguinus Impennis. Rather, they called. However, she had nothing to do with penguins or penises. Spanish and Portuguese sailors called these flightless birds "pinguinos" long before humans reached the southern hemisphere, home to the walking birds today known as penguins. It turns out that penguins are named after auk, and auk should be called the Spanish-Portuguese word "alca". Like Karl Lennay did.

Icelanders and Norwegians called them "geirfuglar" for their spear-shaped nose. Basques - "arponaz". Also for him. The Scots are "gare-fowl". Indigenous peoples of North America and Inuit are somehow different. The rest got along with variants of the word "penguin", which in Walloon unknown to me means "white head" (pen "head" + gwyn "white").

"Impennis" translates as "without flight feathers", that is, wings. The wings of this tall - up to 85 cm tall - the birds were really too short for flying, but they helped when walking and jumping.

In Russian, the bird is called “wingless auk”. And her livestock was completely destroyed. For almost 100,000 years, people have killed these obese (weighing up to 5 kg), but helpless birds for the sake of meat, fur, ornaments. Somewhere in America rests an Indian, in whose grave a cloak decorated with 200 auk's beaks was found. He was probably the chieftain of the Wingless Auk Tribe. That was destroyed by the wars of the Bald Eagle Clan. Bald, but long-winged. And aggressive.

Created by Todd McGrain

One of the last "Geirfugles" lived in Scotland, in the St Kilda Archipelago. In 1840, he was easily caught by local sailors and dragged across the sea in a tied state for three days. Having got into a terrible storm, the sailors decided that the storm was conjured up by a bird, which on the fourth day was stoned. It must be admitted that the storm stopped after that.

Wingless auk

A fairly large colony of auk remained in Iceland, on the Geirfüglasker Island, which in 1830 sank after an earthquake. The last pair of wingless auk on earth lived on Eldey Island, 16 km from the Reykjanes Peninsula. On July 3, 1844, local residents - commissioned by a merchant who dreamed of becoming the lucky owner of a stuffed animal - killed a pair of lovers in love and crushed their only egg.

This is how one of its participants, Sigurdyur Isleivsson, describes this action: “The rocks were perched by black birds (guillemots). And here are the wingless auk! They hobbled awkwardly somewhere. Joun Brandsson crawled over to one of the two birds, preparing to grab it. The bird he caught hid in a corner, while mine moved to the edge of the cliff. She walked like a man, kicking quickly. I grabbed her close to the edge, which extended into an abyss many fathoms high. The bird pressed its wings to its sides, not bristling. I took her by the neck and she beat her wings. But she didn't make a sound. I strangled her. "

In the beginning there were birds. Then stuffed animals. Today there are 78 stuffed auk in the world, but not a single living bird. Then the exterminated birds began to remind us of themselves with monuments. In 2010, on the Reykjanes Peninsula, a giant monument to the wingless auk, by the sculptor Todd McGrain, was "bronzed". In Reykjavik, there is another memorial auk by Olef Nordahl. It realistically beckons from the sea along the pedestrian and bicycle path that skirts the southern coast of the Icelandic capital.

In London's Hyde Park, a new sculpture was installed - a three-meter ibis, a bird sacred to the Egyptians.

All this inspired me with such a plot for a dystopia of low Hollywood standard. Refugee crisis in Europe, blazing Middle East, uninhabitable Africa. Somewhere in the depths of the Russian Arctic melts - from global warming and the leakage of someone's toxic, such as rocket fuel - a storehouse of eggs of this very wingless auk. The bird is reborn. But it mutates into a lethal configuration - a pityless auk with a steel nose, dinosaur wings and a vengeful nature! Monstrous neo-auks tirelessly crush people across defenseless kumpolas. As a result, they destroy the human race, from the last representatives of which they make stuffed animals in the likeness of a mausoleum.

Having trampled on people, birds begin to miss humanity. They are, as it were, taking over the baton of civilization from Homo Sapiens. With civilization comes retrospective, longing for the past. Auk starts to build monuments to the people they destroyed. What will these monuments, made with the use of bird brains, be like? For some reason, it seems to me that the answer to this question is given by the numerous examples of amateur sculpture scattered here and there in today's Iceland. Agree, the person in them is seen a little from a bird's perspective ...

Patio de los Leones Icelandic performance

The wingless auk (Latin Pinguinus impensis) was the largest member of the Alcidae family. She reached a length of 85 cm and weighed up to 5 kg. Its size was only slightly inferior to the related species Miomancalla howardae, which lived about 1-7 million years ago on the Pacific coast of Mexico and California.

The scientific name given to the bird by the French naturalist Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre in 1791 comes from the Welsh word pengwyn. So it was customary to call it in the north of Wales. The seafarers of the birds found in Antarctica also called penguins because of their external resemblance to flightless auk.

Mass hunting in the 17th-18th centuries led to their disappearance, when it was fashionable to decorate hats with bird feathers. The feathers of the auk were especially soft and pleasant to the touch.

The most catastrophic for the continued existence of birds was the eruption of an underwater volcano in 1830, which destroyed their colony on Geirfuglasker Island in southwestern Iceland. Only about 40 birds were able to survive and move to the nearest island of Eldey. Unfortunately, after 5 years they were discovered by people.

In those days, a stuffed auk cost big money, many museums and owners of private collections dreamed of acquiring them. The stuffed animals of the last pair are kept in the Zoological Museum of Copenhagen; only 78 such museum exhibits have survived all over the world.

Spreading

The habitat was in the coastal waters of the North Atlantic. Presumably, it stretched from Canada and the northeastern United States to Norway, Greenland and Iceland, and in the south reached the northern regions of Spain.

The wingless auk nested on rocky islands where the coast was gentle and easy to descend to the sea.

Its dimensions did not allow it to jump into the water from a height like the Atlantic (Alca torda) that have survived to this day. In addition, she settled in places with an abundance of fish and the absence of predators, before which she was completely defenseless.

According to ornithologists, there were hardly more than eight ideal places for her colonies. The largest of these was a colony on Funk Island in what is now the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Before the arrival of the Europeans, up to 100 thousand auk nests on it.

Bones of birds have been found during excavations along the coast of Norway, Denmark and Holland. They have also been found in Florida, Italy, and Morocco.

Behavior

Isotopic studies of the bones found indicate that the birds ate mainly medium-sized fish. She occupied a much larger place in their diet than in the diet of modern auks.

It is believed that young auk could eat plankton, as well as the food that their parents regurgitated.

Judging by the structure of their skeletons, the birds swam well and could move far from the coast. They could dive to great depths, which gave them competitive advantage compared to other species.

Reproduction

According to eyewitness accounts, birds nested close to each other like (Uria aalge). Females laid one egg of a creamy brownish-yellow color with a bluish-greenish tint directly on the stones. Its weight was approximately 327 g.

The birds sailed to their nesting sites in May and left them in mid or late June.

The incubation lasted for about 40 days. Both parents incubated the clutch in turn. Eyewitness accounts of the chicks have not survived.

At the end of the 19th century, claims appeared that adult birds swam in groups on the surface of the water with their offspring on their backs. Such communities contributed to better survival of the offspring.

Description

Body length was 70-85 cm. Weight 4-6 kg. Sexual dimorphism is believed to have been present. Males were larger than females and had longer beaks.

The subspecies have not yet been described, although larger apterous auks nested on the western coast of the Atlantic.

The body was covered with a layer of subcutaneous fat, ensuring prolonged exposure to cold water. The long, hooked, serrated beak reached a length of 11 cm and was adapted for fishing.

The dense plumage gave the body a streamlined shape. The length of the short wings did not exceed 15 cm. They were used together with swimming membranes on the paws as a propeller in the aquatic environment. On land, the birds moved with great difficulty.

The upper part of the body was covered with black and the lower part with white plumage. The eyes were surrounded by a white spot that increased in the summer. In winter, during molting, it disappeared. The neck and limbs were short and the head was small.

The last pair of auk that nested was killed in 1844 on Eldi Island off the coast of Iceland. The species was destroyed by hunters and collectors.

& nbsp & nbsp Detachment - Charadriiformes
& nbsp & nbsp Family - Scissors
& nbsp & nbsp Genus / Species - Pinguinus impennis

& nbsp & nbsp Basic data:
SIZE
Length: 70-80 cm.
Beak length: 7-98 mm.
Weight: about 5 kg.

REPRODUCTION
Breeding period: most likely from May to mid-July.
Number of eggs: 1.
Hatching: about 44 days.

LIFESTYLE
Habits: kept in small flocks, during the nesting period - in large colonies.
Food: a fish.
Sounds: quiet whining and wheezing during the toddling.
Life Expectancy: there is no data.

RELATED SPECIES
The closest relative of the great auk was the species Pinguinus alfrednewtoni. From 22 species of auks that have survived to this day, the closest relative of the great auk is the auk (Alca torda).

& nbsp & nbsp The Wingless Auk was an easy prey because it couldn't fly. Therefore, for centuries, people have hunted it en masse for meat and fat. The bird was on the verge of destruction already in the 18th century, when traders of feathers and meat discovered it as a wonderful "supplier" of these goods.

FOOD

& nbsp & nbsp The wingless auk spends most of its time in the water, so its food consisted of fish and various marine invertebrates.
& nbsp & nbsp Like other members of the family, under water, the wingless auk, most likely, rowed with its feet, on which there were swimming membranes, and slightly opened its wings. During spearfishing, the legs also served as a rudder, and the wingless auk climbed to the surface with the help of short, but very strong wings.

LIFESTYLE

& nbsp & nbsp The Wingless Auk was the largest member of the Auk family. It reached the size of a goose and weighed about 5 times more than modern auks. In the process of development, its wings have decreased and the bird has lost the ability to fly. The legs of the wingless auk were brought far to the end of the body, so it was a wonderful swimmer, but very awkwardly moved on land. As a bird that does not fly, it was threatened by predators and fishing, for which the auk was an affordable source of meat. Probably, her lifestyle did not differ from the lifestyle of modern representatives of this family, for example, the auk. Myasot traders began hunting for these birds as early as 1590. The systematic extermination of wingless auk began at the end of the eighteenth century. All the time, ships of meat suppliers for the Napoleonic army sailed to the Icelandic islands.

REPRODUCTION

& nbsp & nbsp The Wingless Auk was a rather silent bird. Only during the nesting period, when the birds were looking for mates and defending their nesting sites, the flightless auk gave out loud squeaky and hoarse sounds. The wingless auk nested from May to mid-July on small, outlying islands, picking up cliffs and cliffs off the coast. Nesting colonies of these birds were numerous and, probably, flightless auk shared them with other species. seabirds... The females laid one large egg, which was incubated by the female and the male. They held the egg between their legs and warmed it with thick fluff (like penguins do).
& nbsp & nbsp The chick was forking forty-four days after the start of incubation. The newborn chick was covered with thick down, which protected him from the cold. Both the female and the male raised the chick. When the fluff was replaced by feathers, the chick went to the water.

PLACE OF RESIDENCE

& nbsp & nbsp The wingless auk spent most of its life at sea, mainly in the colder regions of the Atlantic.
& nbsp & nbsp Large populations lived in the shallow waters of Grant Bank off the southern coast of Newfoundland and in the rocky islands off Iceland off the southern end, where fish were abundant. Although the bird did not know how to fly, it led a nomadic life. Auk bones have been found south of its range in Florida, Gibraltar and Italy.
& nbsp & nbsp

DID YOU KNOW THAT ...

In 1971, the Icelandic Museum of Natural History paid a record £ 9,000 for a stuffed auk.
The names of the killers of the last pair of wingless auk are known - they are John Bradsson, Sigurd Ilefsson and Kstil Kentilsson.
Archaeological excavations near human habitats suggest that humans hunted flightless auk as early as 8,000 years ago.
In the 18th century, hunting took on a special scale. There is information that during the day they collected 100,000 eggs, and the boats left the hunting grounds to the brim filled with the carcasses of dead flightless auk.

& nbsp & nbsp

comparison of eggs of different types of cleaners

& nbsp & nbsp Auk egg: light, greenish-blue with brown spots, was of considerable size. A single egg, the size of a goose, was laid by the female from May to July directly on a bare rock ledge.
& nbsp & nbsp Auk Egg (Alca torda): It can be of a variety of colors, most commonly brown, but it can also be cream, turquoise, or white with chocolate spots. The female auk lays a single oval egg right on the rocky ledge.
& nbsp & nbsp Lurik Egg (Alle alle): light, greenish-blue with light brown spots. The female lays eggs from late May to early July in rocky crevices. In comparison with the small body of the female, the egg is rather large; both birds incubate it.

- The area of the Great Auk
WHEN AND WHERE THE WINGLESS GAGARKA LIVED
The bird lived in the cold regions of the North Atlantic and nested on uninhabited islands in this region, especially on Fance Island off the coast of Newfoundland. In addition, the auk lived off the coast of Iceland, the British Isles, and Scandinavia. Most likely, they also nested on the coast of the Arctic Ocean. In prehistoric times, wingless auk lived further south. Their bones have been found in Florida and the Mediterranean region.

The wingless auk (Latin Pinguinus Impennis) are bizarre black-and-white birds that could not fly. The wingless auk, nicknamed "the original penguins," grew up to about one meter in height. They had tiny wings about 15 centimeters long. The wingless auk lived in the northern waters of the Atlantic Ocean near countries such as Scotland, Norway, Canada, the United States, and France. They went on land only for breeding.

The wingless auk became highly prized in the early 18th century. Their expensive feathers, leather, meat, butter and thirteen-centimeter eggs attracted hunters and collectors alike. Ultimately, the auk was threatened with extinction, but this only increased the demand for them.

On July 3, 1844, Sigurdur Isleifsson, along with two comrades, went to the Icelandic island of Eldey, where at that time the last colony of wingless auk lived. They found a male and a female there, which was incubating an egg. The men hired by a wealthy merchant killed the birds and crushed an egg. It was the only pair of auk in the world.

The wingless auk generally swam excellently using its wings as a motor. During swimming, almost the entire body of the wingless auk was under water, with the exception of the head, which was always on the surface. During the dive, the wingless auk could do various underwater tricks, such as spinning or making sharp turns. The great auk is known to have dived to 76 meters (249 ft), although unconfirmed reports indicate that it could dive up to 1 km (3300 ft). The breathless auk lasted an average of 15 minutes longer than the seal. To get to the rocky shores of the islands, the wingless auk first accelerated under water, and then suddenly jumped out of it onto land.

The wingless auk has been known to humans for over 100,000 years. She was the most important source of food and a symbol of many Indian cultures that existed with her. Many people of ancient maritime cultures were buried along with the remains of the great auk. In one such burial, more than 200 auk's beaks were found, presumably decorating the cloak of an ancient man.

Due to the hunting of birds for its meat, fluff and use as bait, the number of the Great Auk had begun to decline significantly by the middle of the 16th century. Realizing that the great auk was on the verge of extinction, the scientists decided to include it in the list of protected birds, but this was not enough to save the species. The growing rarity of the bird has increased the already strong interest of European museums and private collectors in obtaining stuffed animals and eggs, thereby ruining the last attempt to save the wingless auk. The last sighting of the Great Auk took place on July 3, 1844 in the area of the Icelandic island of Eldey, although this date remains controversial, as reports of individual observations and even the capture of some individuals began to arrive. According to some bird watchers, the last sighting of the Great Auk was in 1852, which resulted in a single sighting of the Great Newfoundland Bank.

The wingless auk was the first European and American bird to be completely exterminated by humans. In commemoration of the first loss of its continent, the Auk is named The Auk.

A. Lebedev

The article is dedicated to extinct flightless bird- wingless auk.

Everyone knows the penguins that inhabit the southern hemisphere, but few people know that the word "penguin" itself came from the north (though, probably, some still think that penguins live in the Arctic with Polar bears). But earlier this was the name of a completely different bird (albeit a little similar), the wingless auk. There are various versions of the origin of this word. According to one of them, it comes from the phrase "pen gwyn" (white-headed), according to another version it comes from the words "pin wing" (hairpin), and finally the third variant from the Latin "pingus" (thick). Over time, this name passed into many languages, and then generally changed the object, which was called this word.

The wingless auk was well known to European sailors, and when they saw similar birds in the southern seas, they were immediately called penguins. Although it is worth noting that these birds, which are so systematically distant, due to similar living conditions, are really very similar in appearance. The wingless auk had lost its ability to fly and had only underdeveloped wings. On land, she walked awkwardly, stretched out vertically and waddling from foot to foot. But in the sea, no one would have recognized these clumsy birds: like penguins, the auk swam and dived excellently, flapping its wings under the water. A thick layer of subcutaneous fat served as a reliable thermal insulation during a long stay in water.

This bird had many other names, which suggests that people have known this bird since ancient times. The ancient Scandinavians called the auk "geyrfugel" (spear-bird), and the Basques called "arponaz" (spear). Both of these names come from the powerful, elongated beak of the auk. Modern English name great auk (great auk) appeared only in the 18th century.

In historical times, the auk was widespread along the coasts and islands of the entire northern Atlantic (from Labrador and Newfoundland to Greenland and Iceland, and from Norway to the British Isles). It was a large goose-sized bird. The height of an adult auk was 75–85 cm. The wings were only 150–170 mm long. Due to the constant harassment of people, the area of distribution of the poor bird was rapidly shrinking. Even before the beginning of the 10th century, people tried to make the wingless auk disappear on the coast of the continent, finding refuge on hard-to-reach, rocky islands. But even this could no longer save these birds. By the 10th century, miners were no longer interested in spear meat, but in fat and soft elastic feathers, which became a valuable commodity in many places in Europe. Gradually, the wingless auk became an inhabitant of only the northern inaccessible islands. But with the development of navigation, man was able to get there too.

The wingless auk was perfectly adapted to living in the water. She nested on rocks and islands remote from the coast, along with other birds,

the abundance of seabirds in colonies around the island of Newfoundland astounded early European travelers. In such inaccessible conditions, the auk could not be reached by land-based predators, except for one. The wingless auk has been an object of fishing for coastal residents since ancient times. The inability to fly, gullibility, huge nesting clusters made it easy prey. It was not worth getting a wingless auk special labor... They were killed with clubs, oars, sticks, and driven into boats on a board thrown over the side as many as they could fit. Sailors, stocking up on provisions for a long voyage, salted large fat birds in barrels. Ships with holds filled with auk departed from the islands. The egg hunt has also been carried out for a long time.

For sailors forced to eat corned beef and bread crumbs for a long time, seabird colonies were a salvation. The wingless auk was the most profitable and easy prey, so they got the most of them. Birds nesting in the area of Newfoundland Island were unlucky, they were just on the way from Europe to the colonies of New England. Every now and then ships approached the bird islands to replenish supplies and left with their holds fully filled. Later, the settlers joined the fishermen. For many of them, birds were their main food. With the growth of the population on the Atlantic coast of America, the procurement of meat and eggs of seabirds has become more and more profitable business... The extraction of fat was no less devastating than the preparation of meat and eggs, the demand for it at that time was very high. The wingless auk was the perfect target for this.

And, despite this insane incessant extermination, the wingless auk held out for several centuries, such a colossal number was before that. The demand for feathers and down, which was used to make pillows, featherbeds and furniture upholstery, finished off the spearmen, which increased in the second half of the 18th century. Eiders and many other species also got it. It was only in 1794 that the London Colonial Secretary forbade the destruction of spearmen for the pen trade. But this ban came too late, and besides, no one was going to comply with it. By 1802, the last North America the penguin colony on Funk Island was finally destroyed.

For several more decades, the pitiful remains of the Great Auk colonies in the North Atlantic remained. They could no longer be of any interest for fishing. Only two tiny islets off the southwestern coast of Iceland near the Reykjanes Peninsula have become the last refuge of wingless auk. Actually, these were not islands, but just rocks in the middle of the sea. These are the islands of Geirfuglasker and Elday. Geirfuglasker served as a safe haven for birds. The island was almost inaccessible due to the strong surf. Fishing on these islands was not very profitable, since two nearby monasteries demanded 3/4 of the booty as a duty. But in the winter of 1830, Geirfuglasker Island was swallowed up by the sea as a result of an underwater volcanic eruption. Only a tiny colony of wingless auk remained on Eldey Island.

By that time, miners of meat and feathers had already forgotten about the spear as an object of fishing. But then the collectors entered the arena, putting an end to this tragedy. When everyone began to realize that the days of the "northern penguin" were numbered, the prices of stuffed animals and auks' eggs jumped wildly, and many museums and private collectors wanted to get their own copies. It is not even approximately known what the number of spearmen was at the time of their prosperity. The numbers reflect only how many birds were killed in the last years of the species' existence.

1830 - 13 birds

1831 - 24 birds

1833 - 13 birds

1834 - 9 birds

1840 - 1841 - 3 birds

The last two birds were killed on June 3, 1844. Whether these birds were really the last representatives of their species, it will never be possible to establish. In any case, it was they who went down in history. After that, for more than ten years, there were reports of sightings of wingless auk in different locations but it was not possible to verify them. "

From the once flourishing species, 78 stuffed animals and carcasses in museums, about 75 eggs and several skeletons remained. Now they cost a lot of money. Now a small memorial in the form of a statue of a wingless auk has been erected on Elday Island, this sculpture has become a symbol of the lost natural heritage.

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