Animalia > Chordata > Aves > Charadriiformes > Alcidae > Fratercula > Fratercula arctica

Fratercula arctica (Atlantic Puffin)

Synonyms: Alca arctica (homotypic)
Language: French

Wikipedia Abstract

The Atlantic puffin (Fratercula arctica), also known as the common puffin, is a species of seabird in the auk family. It is the only puffin native to the Atlantic Ocean; two related species, the tufted puffin and the horned puffin, are found in the northeastern Pacific. The Atlantic puffin breeds in Iceland, Norway, Greenland, Newfoundland and many North Atlantic islands, and as far south as Maine in the west and the British Isles in the east. With a large population and a wide range, the species is not considered to be endangered, although there may be local declines in numbers. On land, it has the typical upright stance of an auk. At sea, it swims on the surface and feeds mainly on small fish, which it catches by diving underwater, using its wings for propulsion.
View Wikipedia Record: Fratercula arctica

Infraspecies

Fratercula arctica arctica
Fratercula arctica grabae
Fratercula arctica naumanni

Endangered Species

Status: Vulnerable
View IUCN Record: Fratercula arctica

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
2
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
19
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 6.24392
EDGE Score: 1.98016
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Clutch Size [4]  1
Clutches / Year [4]  1
Fledging [6]  48 days
Global Population (2017 est.) [3]  12,000,000
Incubation [4]  42 days
Mating Display [7]  Ground display
Mating System [7]  Monogamy
Maximum Longevity [4]  34 years
Migration [1]  Intercontinental
Water Biome [1]  Coastal
Wing Span [8]  22 inches (.55 m)
Adult Weight [2]  452 grams
Birth Weight [4]  40 grams
Breeding Habitat [3]  Coastal cliffs and islands, Coastal marine
Wintering Geography [3]  Atlantic Coast
Wintering Habitat [3]  Coastal marine, Pelagic
Diet [5]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Piscivore
Diet - Fish [5]  80 %
Diet - Invertibrates [5]  20 %
Forages - Underwater [5]  100 %
Female Maturity [4]  4 years
Male Maturity [4]  4 years

Ecoregions

Name Countries Ecozone Biome Species Report Climate Land
Use
Arctic desert Norway, Russia Palearctic Tundra    
Northwest Russian-Novaya Zemlya tundra Russia Palearctic Tundra
Scandinavian and Russian taiga Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia Palearctic Boreal Forests/Taiga

Protected Areas

Important Bird Areas

Emblem of

Newfoundland & Labrador

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Falco rusticolus (Gyrfalcon)[12]
Ursus maritimus (Polar Bear)[9]

Consumers

Range Map

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Myers, 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
♦ 2Storchová, Lenka; Hořák, David (2018), Data from: Life-history characteristics of European birds, Dryad, Dataset, https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.n6k3n
♦ 3Partners in Flight Avian Conservation Assessment Database, version 2017. Accessed on January 2018.
♦ 4de 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
♦ 5Hamish 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
♦ 6Nathan 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
♦ 7Terje Lislevand, Jordi Figuerola, and Tamás Székely. 2007. Avian body sizes in relation to fecundity, mating system, display behavior, and resource sharing. Ecology 88:1605
♦ 8British Trust for Ornithology
♦ 9Jorrit 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.
♦ 10An estimate of summer food consumption of six seabird species in Iceland, K. Lilliendahl and J. Solmundsson, ICES Journal of Marine Science, 54: 624–630. 1997
♦ 11Winter Diet of Atlantic Puffins (Fratercula arctica) in the Northeast Atlantic, Knud Falk, Jens-Kjeld Jensen and Kaj Kampp, Colonial Waterbirds, Vol. 15, No. 2 (1992), pp. 230-235
♦ 12POTAPOV, E. 2011. Gyrfalcon diet: Spatial and temporal variation In R. T. Watson, T. J. Cade, M. Fuller, G. Hunt, and E. Potapov (Eds.). Gyrfalcons and Ptarmigan in a Changing World. The Peregrine Fund, Boise, Idaho, USA
♦ 13International Flea Database
♦ 14Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
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