A Great Auk, P1nguinis, from the Pliocene of North Carolina (aves: Alcidae)

The Great Auk, Pinguinis impennis, is renowned chiefly for the sad history of its extinction, the last known individuals having been killed in 1844 (Greenway, 1958). Of the Recent species of Alcidae, P. impennis was the largest and the only one that was flightless. In historic times it is known to have bred on certain North Atlantic islands off Newfoundland, Iceland, and Britain, and to have wintered south to New England in the western Atlantic and to Spain in the eastern Atlantic. Remains indicating a more extensive range in the past have been found in middens in Florida and in the Pleistocene of Italy, as well as at additional localities between these sites and the known historic range (Brodkorb, 1967). Although a number of authors have considered the Great Auk to be congeneric with the modern Razorbill, Alca tor da, I agree with Salomonsen (1944) and others that impennis should be separated under the genus Pinguinis. The great modifications seen in the wing of Pinguinis are not the result of neoteny, as seen in many other flightless birds (Olson, 1973), or of "degeneration," as suggested by Greenway (1958:271), who was under the impression that the keel of the sternum of Pinguinis was as reduced as the wing. Instead, these modifications represent highly derived specializations for wing-propelled diving. Until now there has been no fossil record of Pinguinis other than the Pleistocene occurrences of P. impennis. This lack has been remedied by the discovery, among the thousands of fossil alcid bones recovered from a phosphate mine in North Carolina (Olson and Wetmore, in press), of six specimens that pertain to an undescribed species recognizable as belonging to the genus Pinguinis by its short, heavy ulna. For comparison I have had the extremely large series of disassociated bones of P. impennis collected by Lucas (1890) on Funk Island, Newfoundland.