Animalia > Chordata > Aves > Suliformes > Phalacrocoracidae > Phalacrocorax > Phalacrocorax penicillatus

Phalacrocorax penicillatus (Brandt's Cormorant)

Synonyms: Carbo penicillatus (homotypic)
Language: Spanish

Wikipedia Abstract

The Brandt's cormorant (Phalacrocorax penicillatus) is a strictly marine bird of the cormorant family of seabirds that inhabits the Pacific coast of North America. It ranges, in the summer, from Alaska to the Gulf of California, but the population north of Vancouver Island migrates south during the winter. Its specific name, penicillatus is Latin for a painter's brush (pencil of hairs), in reference to white plumes on its neck and back during the early breeding season. The common name honors the German naturalist Johann Friedrich von Brandt of the Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg, who described the species from specimens collected on expeditions to the Pacific during the early 19th century.
View Wikipedia Record: Phalacrocorax penicillatus

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
3
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
22
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 7.71992
EDGE Score: 2.16561
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  4.958 lbs (2.249 kg)
Birth Weight [3]  33 grams
Female Weight [5]  4.244 lbs (1.925 kg)
Male Weight [1]  5.666 lbs (2.57 kg)
Weight Dimorphism [1]  33.3 %
Breeding Habitat [2]  Coastal cliffs and islands, Coastal marine
Wintering Geography [2]  Pacific Coast
Wintering Habitat [2]  Coastal marine, Rocky intertidal
Diet [4]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Piscivore
Diet - Fish [4]  80 %
Diet - Invertibrates [4]  20 %
Forages - Underwater [4]  100 %
Female Maturity [3]  2 years
Male Maturity [3]  2 years
Clutch Size [3]  3
Clutches / Year [3]  1
Incubation [3]  30 days
Maximum Longevity [3]  18 years

Ecoregions

Name Countries Ecozone Biome Species Report Climate Land
Use
Baja California desert Mexico Nearctic Deserts and Xeric Shrublands
California coastal sage and chaparral Mexico, United States Nearctic Mediterranean Forests, Woodlands, and Scrub
Galápagos Islands scrubland mosaic Ecuador Neotropic Deserts and Xeric Shrublands
Gulf of California xeric scrub Mexico Nearctic Deserts and Xeric Shrublands
Sonoran desert Mexico, United States Nearctic Deserts and Xeric Shrublands

Protected Areas

Important Bird Areas

Name Location  IBA Criteria   Website   Climate   Land Use 
Active Pass Canada A4i
Barkley Sound Canada A1, A4i, A4iii
Chain Islets and Great Chain Islet Canada A4i

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
California Floristic Province Mexico, United States No

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Acanthotrema hancocki[6]
Galactosomum humbargari[6]
Pygidiopsoides spindalis[6]
Renicola buchanani[6]
Renicola cerithidicola[6]

Range Map

External References

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
♦ 2Partners in Flight Avian Conservation Assessment Database, version 2017. Accessed on January 2018.
♦ 3de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 4Hamish 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
♦ 5Johnsgard, PA 1993. Cormorants, Darters, and Pelicans of the World. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC
♦ 6Jorrit 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.
♦ 7Food Web Relationships of Northern Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca : a Synthesis of the Available Knowledge, Charles A. Simenstad, Bruce S. Miller, Carl F. Nyblade, Kathleen Thornburgh, and Lewis J. Bledsoe, EPA-600 7-29-259 September 1979
♦ 8Szoboszlai AI, Thayer JA, Wood SA, Sydeman WJ, Koehn LE (2015) Forage species in predator diets: synthesis of data from the California Current. Ecological Informatics 29(1): 45-56. Szoboszlai AI, Thayer JA, Wood SA, Sydeman WJ, Koehn LE (2015) Data from: Forage species in predator diets: synthesis of data from the California Current. Dryad Digital Repository.
♦ 9CephBase - Cephalopod (Octopus, Squid, Cuttlefish and Nautilus) 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