Lava shearwater

Lava shearwater; Temporal range: Holocene
	Skull at the Museum of Nature and Man, Tenerife (Spain).
Conservation status
	Extinct
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Procellariiformes
Family:	Procellariidae
Genus:	Puffinus
Species:	P. olsoni
Binomial name
	Puffinus olsoni; McMinn, Jaume & Alcover, 1990

Last updated April 17, 2019

Left and middle: Skull of P. olsoni (above) compared to skull of P. puffinus
Right: Humerus of P. olsoni (left) compared to humerus of P. puffinus (right) Puffinus.png — **Left and middle**: Skull of *P. olsoni* (above) compared to skull of *P. puffinus*
**Right**: Humerus of *P. olsoni* (left) compared to humerus of *P. puffinus* (right)

The lava shearwater (Puffinus olsoni), or Olson's shearwater, was a species of shearwater that bred on Lanzarote and Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands. It is known from fossil remains, and was only described in 1990. It was intermediate in size between the Manx shearwater and the little shearwater. The remains of the species are particularly common in lava fields.

Shearwaters are medium-sized long-winged seabirds. There are more than 30 species of shearwaters, a few larger ones in the genus Calonectris and many smaller species in the genus Puffinus. The Procellaria petrels and Bulweria were believed to belong to this group, but are only distantly related based on more recent studies, while the Pseudobulweria and Lugensa "petrels" are more closely related. The genus Puffinus can be divided into a group of small species close to Calonectris and a few larger ones more distantly related to both.

Lanzarote is a Spanish island, the northernmost and easternmost of the autonomous Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. It is located approximately 125 kilometres off the north coast of Africa and 1,000 kilometres from the Iberian Peninsula. Covering 845.94 square kilometres, Lanzarote is the fourth-largest of the islands in the archipelago. With 149,183 inhabitants, it is the third most populous Canary Island, after Tenerife and Gran Canaria. Located in the centre-west of the island is Timanfaya National Park, one of its main attractions. The island was declared a biosphere reserve by UNESCO in 1993. The island's capital is Arrecife.

Fuerteventura is one of the Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean and is part of the North Africa region, politically part of Spain. At 1,660 square kilometres (640 sq mi), it is the second largest of the Canary Islands, after Tenerife. Fuerteventura in 2018 had 113,275 inhabitants. It was declared a biosphere reserve by UNESCO in May 2009. Its capital is Puerto del Rosario.

The species is thought to have survived the arrival of the first settlers in the Canary Islands, and become extinct after the arrival of European settlers in the 15th century. It is suspected that the species became extinct due to hunting pressures and possibly the arrival of introduced species such as rats.

An introduced species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived there by human activity, either deliberate or accidental. Non-native species can have various effects on the local ecosystem. Introduced species that become established and spread beyond the place of introduction are called invasive species. The impact of introduced species is highly variable. Some have a negative effect on a local ecosystem, while other introduced species may have no negative effect or only minor impact. Some species have been introduced intentionally to combat pests. They are called biocontrols and may be regarded as beneficial as an alternative to pesticides in agriculture for example. In some instances the potential for being beneficial or detrimental in the long run remains unknown.

Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents. Species of rats are found throughout the order Rodentia, but stereotypical rats are found in the genus Rattus. Other rat genera include Neotoma, Bandicota and Dipodomys.

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The family Procellariidae is a group of seabirds that comprises the fulmarine petrels, the gadfly petrels, the prions, and the shearwaters. This family is part of the bird order Procellariiformes, which also includes the albatrosses, the storm petrels, and the diving petrels.

The Manx shearwater is a medium-sized shearwater in the seabird family Procellariidae. The scientific name of this species records a name shift: Manx shearwaters were called Manks puffins in the 17th century. Puffin is an Anglo-Norman word for the cured carcasses of nestling shearwaters. The Atlantic puffin acquired the name much later, possibly because of its similar nesting habits.

The Balearic shearwater 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.

The yelkouan shearwater, Levantine shearwater or Mediterranean shearwater is a medium-sized shearwater in the seabird family Procellariidae.

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.

Calonectris is a genus of seabirds. The genus name comes from Ancient Greek kalos, "good" and nectris, "swimmer".

The Christmas shearwater is a medium-sized shearwater of the tropical Central Pacific. It is a poorly known species due to its remote nesting habits, and it has not been extensively studied at sea either.

The short-tailed shearwater or slender-billed shearwater, also called yolla or moonbird, and commonly known as the muttonbird in Australia, is the most abundant seabird species in Australian waters, and is one of the few Australian native birds in which the chicks are commercially harvested. It is a migratory species that breeds mainly on small islands in Bass Strait and Tasmania and migrates to the Northern Hemisphere for the boreal summer.

The Townsend's shearwater is a rare seabird of the tropics from the family Procellariidae.

The lava mouse is an extinct endemic rodent from the Canary Islands, Spain. It is the only species in the genus Malpaisomys.

The Barolo shearwater, also known as the North Atlantic little shearwater or Macaronesian shearwater, is a small shearwater which breeds in the Azores and Canaries of Macaronesia in the North Atlantic Ocean. 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 baroli refers to Carlo Tencredi Falletti, marquis of Barolo.

Storrs Lovejoy Olson is an American biologist and ornithologist who spent his career at the Smithsonian Institution, retiring in 2008. One of the world's foremost avian paleontologists, he is best known for his studies of fossil and subfossil birds on islands such as Ascension, St. Helena and Hawaii. His early higher education took place at Florida State University in 1966, where he obtained a B.A. in Biology, and the University of Florida, where he received an M.S. in Biology. Olson's doctoral studies took place at Johns Hopkins University, in what was then the School of Hygiene and Public Health. He has been married to fellow paleornithologist Helen F. James.

Scarlett's shearwater is an extinct species of seabird in the petrel family Procellariidae. Its common name commemorates New Zealand palaeontologist Ron Scarlett, who recognised the bird's subfossil remains represented a distinct species.

The Saint Helena shearwater is an extinct species of seabird in the petrel family. It is known only from subfossil remains found on the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. It probably became extinct at the end of the last glacial period, or the early Holocene, as the climate became warmer.

The Bryan's shearwater is a species of shearwater that may occur around the Hawaiian Islands. It is the smallest species of shearwater and is black and white with a bluish gray beak and blue tarsi. First collected in 1963 and thought to be a little shearwater it was determined using DNA analysis to be distinct in 2011. It is rare and possibly threatened and there is little information on its breeding or non-breeding ranges. It is named after Edwin Horace Bryan Jr. a former curator of the B. P. Bishop Museum at Honolulu.

The dune shearwater, 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 the Jandia Peninsula of Fuerteventura. It was intermediate in size between the Manx and Cory's shearwaters. Its breeding colonies were in dune fields, in contrast to those of the smaller and sympatric lava 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.

References

J. C. Rando, J. A. Alcover (2008) "Evidence for a second western Palaearctic seabird extinction during the last Millennium: the Lava Shearwater Puffinus olsoni" Ibis150 (1), 188–192 doi : 10.1111/j.1474-919X.2007.00741.x

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