The great auk is a species of flightless alcid that became extinct in the mid-19th century. It was the only modern species in the genus Pinguinus. It is not closely related to the birds now known as penguins, which were discovered later by Europeans and so named by sailors because of their physical resemblance to the great auk.
Puffins are any of three species of small alcids (auks) in the bird genus Fratercula. These are pelagic seabirds that feed primarily by diving in the water. They breed in large colonies on coastal cliffs or offshore islands, nesting in crevices among rocks or in burrows in the soil. Two species, the tufted puffin and horned puffin, are found in the North Pacific Ocean, while the Atlantic puffin is found in the North Atlantic Ocean.
An auk or alcid is a bird of the family Alcidae in the order Charadriiformes. The alcid family includes the murres, guillemots, auklets, puffins, and murrelets. The family contains 25 extant or recently extinct species that are divided into 11 genera.
The darters, anhingas, or snakebirds are mainly tropical waterbirds in the family Anhingidae, which contains a single genus, Anhinga. There are four living species, three of which are very common and widespread while the fourth is rarer and classified as near-threatened by the IUCN. The term snakebird is usually used without any additions to signify whichever of the completely allopatric species occurs in any one region. It refers to their long thin neck, which has a snake-like appearance when they swim with their bodies submerged, or when mated pairs twist it during their bonding displays. "Darter" is used with a geographical term when referring to particular species. It alludes to their manner of procuring food, as they impale fishes with their thin, pointed beak. The American darter is more commonly known as the anhinga. It is sometimes called "water turkey" in the southern United States; though the anhinga is quite unrelated to the wild turkey, they are both large, blackish birds with long tails that are sometimes hunted for food.
The razorbill, razor-billed auk, or lesser auk is a North Atlantic colonial seabird and the only extant member of the genus Alca of the family Alcidae, the auks. It is the closest living relative of the extinct great auk.
Mancallinae is an extinct subfamily of prehistoric flightless alcids that lived on the Pacific coast of today's California and Mexico from the late Miocene epoch to the early Pleistocene. They are sometimes collectively referred to as Lucas auks after the scientist who described the first species, Frederic Augustus Lucas.
Osteodontornis is an extinct seabird genus. It contains a single named species, Osteodontornis orri, which was described quite exactly one century after the first species of the Pelagornithidae was. O. orri was named after the naturalist Ellison Orr (1857-1951).
The Pelagornithidae, commonly called pelagornithids, pseudodontorns, bony-toothed birds, false-toothed birds or pseudotooth birds, are a prehistoric family of large seabirds. Their fossil remains have been found all over the world in rocks dating between the Early Paleocene and the Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary.
Paleontology or palaeontology is the study of prehistoric life forms on Earth through the examination of plant and animal fossils. This includes the study of body fossils, tracks (ichnites), burrows, cast-off parts, fossilised feces (coprolites), palynomorphs and chemical residues. Because humans have encountered fossils for millennia, paleontology has a long history both before and after becoming formalized as a science. This article records significant discoveries and events related to paleontology that occurred or were published in the year 1976.
Copepteryx is an extinct genus of flightless bird of the family Plotopteridae, endemic to Japan during the Oligocene living from 28.4 to 23 mya, meaning it existed for approximately 5.4 million years.
Pan-Alcidae is a clade of charadriiform birds containing the auks and their extinct relatives. It was named in 2011 by N.A. Smith, who defined it as all descendants of the common ancestor of the group Mancallinae and crown group auks (Alcidae), but some have disputed the use of the Pan- prefix in general for family-group names regulated by the Zoocode.
Pelecanus schreiberi is a fossil pelican described by Storrs Olson from Early Pliocene deposits in the Yorktown Formation of North Carolina. It was a large species with distinctive features suggesting that it represents an extinct lineage with no living descendants. The specific epithet commemorates Ralph W. Schreiber (1942–1988), a former curator of birds at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and an authority on pelicans.
Dow's puffin is an extinct seabird in the auk family described in 2000 from subfossil remains found in the Channel Islands of California. It was approximately as large as the modern horned puffin and its beak appeared to have been an intermediate between the rhinoceros auklet and the horned puffin. It lived during the Late Pleistocene and Early Pleistocene on the Channel Islands, where it nested alongside the ancient murrelet, Cassin's auklet and Chendytes lawi.
The jacanas are a group of tropical waders in the family Jacanidae. They are found in the tropical regions around the world. They are noted for their elongated toes and toenails that allow them to spread out their weight while foraging on floating or semi-emergent aquatic vegetation. They are also among the somewhat rare groups of birds in which females are larger, and several species maintain harems of males in the breeding season with males solely responsible for incubating eggs and taking care of the chicks.
Annakacygna is a genus of flightless marine swan from the Miocene of Japan. Named in 2022, Annakacygna displays a series of unique adaptations setting it apart from any other known swan, including a filter feeding lifestyle, a highly mobile tail and wings that likely formed a cradle for their hatchlings in a fashion similar to modern mute swans. Additionally, it may have used both wings and tail as a form of display. All of these traits combined have led the researchers working on it to dub it "the ultimate bird". Two species are known, A. hajimei, which was approximately the size of a black swan, and A. yoshiiensis which exceeded the mute swan in both size and weight. The describing authors proposed the vernacular name Annaka short-winged swan for the genus.
Plotopterum is an extinct genus of flightless seabird of the family Plotopteridae, native to the North Pacific during the Late Oligocene and the Early Miocene. The only described species is Plotopterum joaquinensis.
Tonsala is an extinct genus of Plotopteridae, a family of flightless seabird similar in biology with penguins, but more closely related to modern cormorants. The genus is known from terrains dated from the Late Oligocene of the State of Washington and Japan.
Gavia howardae is an extinct species of loon from the Piacenzian age from United States. Fossils of this bird were initially found in 1947 by Clifford Kennell in the San Diego Formation, California and were given a name in 1953 by Pierce Brodkorb. These first specimens consisted of humeri bones, which Brodkorb indicated based on the distal end of the humerus were a smaller species of the genus Gavia, with a possible relationship with the pacific loon. More specimens were collected from the same deposits covering the entirety of the wing, some more complete than others. Chandler (1990) described and published these new materials and found G. howardae to be related to the red-throated loon instead. Additional material has been recovered from the Yorktown Formation, North Carolina where in addition more wing bones, there were also remains of the leg and shoulder regions. Based on the overall size of the remains, G. howardae was on average smaller than the red-throated loon, and one of the smallest species of Neogene loons from North America.
Pliolymbus is a fossil genus of grebe known from the Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene of United States and Mexico. It is known from a single species, P. baryosteus.
Podiceps howardae is a possible extinct species of grebe from the United States, possibly a larger and earlier form of the horned grebe.
