Animalia > Chordata > Aves > Procellariiformes > Procellariidae > Puffinus > Puffinus gravis

Puffinus gravis (Greater Shearwater; Great Shearwater)

Synonyms: Ardenna gravis (homotypic); Ardenna gravis gravis; Procellaria gravis (homotypic); Procellaria spec; Puffinus cinereus
Language: French; Spanish

Wikipedia Abstract

The great shearwater (Ardenna gravis; formerly Puffinus gravis) is a large shearwater in the seabird family Procellariidae. Ardenna was first used to refer to a seabird by Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi in 1603, and gravis is Latin for "heavy". This shearwater, like the sooty shearwater, follows a circular route, moving up the eastern seaboard of first South and then North America, before crossing the Atlantic in August. It can be quite common off the south-western coasts of Great Britain and Ireland before heading back south again, this time down the eastern littoral of the Atlantic.
View Wikipedia Record: Puffinus gravis

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
3
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
21
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 7.36239
EDGE Score: 2.12374
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  1.929 lbs (875 g)
Diet [2]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Carnivore (Vertebrates), Piscivore
Diet - Fish [2]  40 %
Diet - Invertibrates [2]  40 %
Diet - Scavenger [2]  20 %
Forages - Water Surface [2]  50 %
Forages - Underwater [2]  50 %
Clutch Size [3]  1
Clutches / Year [1]  1
Fledging [1]  84 days
Incubation [3]  55 days
Maximum Longevity [1]  7 years
Migration [3]  Interoceanic
Wing Span [3]  3.575 feet (1.09 m)

Ecoregions

Name Countries Ecozone Biome Species Report Climate Land
Use
Madeira evergreen forests Portugal Palearctic Temperate Broadleaf and Mixed Forests  
North Atlantic moist mixed forests Ireland, United Kingdom Palearctic Temperate Broadleaf and Mixed Forests
Patagonian steppe Chile, Argentina Neotropic Temperate Grasslands, Savannas, and Shrublands
Scotia Sea Islands tundra United Kingdom Antarctic Tundra    
Tristan Da Cunha-Gough Islands shrub and grasslands United Kingdom Afrotropic Temperate Grasslands, Savannas, and Shrublands    

Protected Areas

Important Bird Areas

Name Location  IBA Criteria   Website   Climate   Land Use 
Brier Island and Offshore Waters Canada A4iii  
Gough Island St Helena (to UK) A1, A2, A4i, A4ii, A4iii  
Inaccessible Island St Helena (to UK) A1, A2, A4i, A4ii, A4iii    
Nightingale Island group St Helena (to UK) A1, A2, A4i, A4ii, A4iii  
Placentia Bay Canada A4iii

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Mediterranean Basin Algeria, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Portugal, Spain, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey No

Prey / Diet

Illex illecebrosus (northern shortfin squid)[4]
Moroteuthopsis longimana (Giant Warty Squid)[5]

Prey / Diet Overlap

Consumers

Range Map

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 2Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 3Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 4Feeding Spectrum and Trophic Relationships of Short-finned Squid (Illex illecebrosus) in the Northwest Atlantic, Yu. M. Froerman, NAFO Sci. Coun. Studies, 7: 67-75 (1984)
♦ 5Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 6Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
♦ 7International Flea Database
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0