Species of bird
Scopoli's shearwater
(
Calonectris diomedea
) is a
seabird
in the petrel family
Procellariidae
. It breeds on rocky islands and on steep coasts in the Mediterranean but outside the breeding season it forages in the Atlantic. It is brownish grey above with darker wings and mostly white below. The bill is pale yellow with a dark patch near the tip. The sexes are alike. It was formerly considered to be
conspecific
with
Cory's shearwater
.
Taxonomy
[
edit
]
Scopoli's shearwater was
formally described
in 1769 by the Austrian naturalist
Giovanni Antonio Scopoli
. He placed it with the other petrels in the
genus
Procellaria
and coined the
binomial name
Procellaria diomedea
. Scopoli did not mention a
type locality
but this was designated in 1946 by the
British Ornithologists' Union
as the
Tremiti Islands
in the
Adriatic
.
[2]
[3]
Scopoli's shearwater is now placed in the genus
Calonectris
that was introduced in 1915 by the ornithologists
Gregory Mathews
and
Tom Iredale
.
[4]
[5]
The genus name combines the
Ancient Greek
kalos
meaning "good" or "noble" with the genus name
Nectris
that was used for shearwaters by the German naturalist
Heinrich Kuhl
in 1820. The name
Nectris
comes from the Ancient Greek
n?ktris
meaning "swimmer". The specific epithet
diomedea
refers to
Diomedes
, a hero in
Greek mythology
. His wife was serially unfaithful while he fought at
Troy
, so he left to found a city in Italy. After his death, his distraught friends were turned into white seabirds.
[6]
[7]
The species is considered to be
monotypic
: no
subspecies
are recognised.
[5]
Scopoli's shearwater and
Cory's shearwater
were previously considered as
conspecific
. They formed the Cory's shearwater complex (
Calonectris diomedea
). Based on the lack of hybridization and differences in mitochondrial DNA, morphology and vocalization, the complex was split into two separate species. The English name "Cory's shearwater" was transferred to
Calonectris borealis
while what was previously the
nominate subspecies
became Scopoli's shearwater (
Calonectris diomedea
).
[5]
[8]
Although most ornithological authorities treat Cory's shearwater and Scopoli's shearwater as separate species,
[5]
[9]
[10]
the
Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology
has chosen not to do so in their updates to
The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World
.
[11]
Description
[
edit
]
Scopoli's shearwater is 45?52 cm (18?20 in) in overall length with a wingspan of 112?122 cm (44?48 in).
[12]
The upperparts are brownish-grey with most feathers fringed with a lighter brown. The wings are a darker brown. The upper tail-coverts are tipped whitish and the tail is dark brown. The underparts are mostly white with a brown border which is most prominent of the trailing edge of the wing. The bill is pale yellow with a dark patch near the tip. The legs and feet are a pale flesh colour.
[13]
The sexes are similar in appearance but the male is on average slightly larger than the female.
[14]
[15]
The appearance is very similar to Cory's shearwater and the two species can be difficult to distinguish. The underside of the wing of Scopoli's shearwater has more white on the
primary
feathers at the wingtip, in particular the outermost large feather (P10).
[15]
[16]
The
Cape Verde shearwater
is smaller and is significantly darker above.
[13]
Distribution and habitat
[
edit
]
Scopoli's shearwater breeds on islands in the Mediterranean from the
Chafarinas Islands
off the Moroccan coast in the west to the
Dodecanese
near Turkey in the east. The largest colony is on the rocky island of
Zembra
, 13 km (8.1 mi) off the Tunisian coast. The colony contains between 141,000 and 223,000 breeding pairs which represents more than 75 percent of the global population.
[17]
Other large colonies are on the island of
Linosa
in the
Strait of Sicily
,
[18]
and on the
Balearic Islands
.
[17]
At the end of October, after the breeding season, Scopoli's shearwaters migrate to the
Atlantic
and stream out of the Mediterranean through the
Strait of Gibraltar
.
[19]
They return to the Mediterranean at the end of February. Studies using
light level geolocators
have found that birds tagged either on the island of Linosa or on the
Pantaleu
islet in the
Balearic Islands
wintered in regions associated with major upwellings in the south east Atlantic. The birds either foraged off the coast of
West Africa
in the upwelling associated with the
Canary Current
or continued further south and foraged in the
Benguela Current
off the coast of
Namibia
.
[20]
[21]
Food and feeding
[
edit
]
Scopoli's shearwater mainly feeds on small fish, but it also consumes
cephalopods
and
crustacean
. It feeds by skimming over the surface or by surface feeding but only rarely plunges completely beneath the surface. Sometimes it will follows whales and tuna to pick up food scraps and to catch small fish driven to the surface. It will also scavenge discards from fishing vessels.
[13]
[22]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
BirdLife International (2018).
"
Calonectris diomedea
"
.
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
.
2018
: e.T45061132A132667885.
doi
:
10.2305/IUCN.UK.2018-2.RLTS.T45061132A132667885.en
. Retrieved
12 November
2021
.
- ^
British Ornithologists' Union (1946). "Seventeenth Report of the Committee on the Nomenclature and Records of the Occurrence of Rare Birds in the British Islands, and on certain necessary Changes in the Nomenclature of the B.O.U. List of British Birds".
Ibis
.
88
(4): 533?534 [534].
doi
:
10.1111/j.1474-919X.1946.tb03508.x
.
- ^
Mayr, Ernst
; Cottrell, G. William, eds. (1979).
Check-List of Birds of the World
. Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. p. 88.
- ^
Mathews, Gregory M.
;
Iredale, Tom
(1915).
"On some petrels from the North-East Pacific Ocean"
.
Ibis
.
57
(3): 572?609 [590, 592].
doi
:
10.1111/j.1474-919X.1915.tb08206.x
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Gill, Frank
; Donsker, David;
Rasmussen, Pamela
, eds. (January 2022).
"Petrels, albatrosses"
.
IOC World Bird List Version 12.1
. International Ornithologists' Union
. Retrieved
13 February
2022
.
- ^
Jobling, James A. (2010).
The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names
. London: Christopher Helm. pp.
86
,
267
,
136
.
ISBN
978-1-4081-2501-4
.
- ^
Kuhl, Heinrich
(1820).
Beitrage zur Zoologie und vergleichenden Anatomie
(in German and Latin). Frankfurt am Main: Verlag der Hermannschen Buchhandlung. p. 148.
- ^
Sangster, G.
; Collinson, J.M.; Crochet, P.-A.; Knox, A.G.; Parkin, D.T.; Votier, S.C. (2012).
"Taxonomic recommendations for Western Palearctic birds: eighth report"
.
Ibis
.
154
(4): 874?883.
doi
:
10.1111/j.1474-919X.2012.01273.x
.
- ^
Dickinson, E.C.
;
Remsen, J.V. Jr.
, eds. (2013).
The Howard & Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World
. Vol. 1: Non-passerines (4th ed.). Eastbourne, UK: Aves Press. p. 179.
ISBN
978-0-9568611-0-8
.
- ^
"Species Factsheet: Scopoli's Shearwater
Calonectris diomedea
"
. BirdLife International
. Retrieved
17 February
2022
.
- ^
"Clements Checklist"
. Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology
. Retrieved
16 February
2022
.
- ^
Svensson, Lars; Mullarney, Killian; Zetterstrom, Dan (2009).
Collins Bird Guide
(2nd ed.). London: HarperCollins. p. 68.
ISBN
978-0-00-726814-6
.
- ^
a
b
c
Cramp, Stanley
, ed. (1977). "
Calonectris diomedea
Cory's Shearwater".
Handbook of the Birds of Europe the Middle East and North Africa. The Birds of the Western Palearctic
. Vol. I: Ostrich to Ducks. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 136?140.
ISBN
978-0-19-857358-6
.
- ^
Gomez-Diaz, E.; Gonzalez-Solis, J.; Peinado, M.A.; Page, R.D.M. (2006). "Phylogeography of the
Calonectris
shearwaters using molecular and morphometric data".
Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution
.
41
(2): 322?332.
doi
:
10.1016/j.ympev.2006.05.006
.
PMID
16814569
.
See Supplementary Data for morphological measurements.
- ^
a
b
Flood, Robert; Gutierrez, Ricard (2019).
"The status of Cory's Shearwater in the western Mediterranean Sea"
.
Dutch Birding
.
41
: 159?165.
- ^
Flood, Robert L.; Gutierrez, Ricard (2021).
"Field separation of Cory's
Calonectris borealis
and Scopoli's
C. diomedea
Shearwaters by underwing pattern"
(PDF)
.
Marine Ornithology
.
49
(2): 311?320.
- ^
a
b
Defos du Rau, P.; Bourgeois, K.; Thevenet, M.; Ruffino, L.; Dromzee, S.; Ouni, R.; Abiadh, A.; Esteve, R.; Durand, J.-P.; Anselme, L.; Faggio, G.; Yahya, J.M.; Rguibi, H.; Renda, M.; Miladi, B.; Hamrouni, H.; Alilech, S.; Nefla, A.; Jaouadi, W.; Agrebi, S.; Renou, S. (2015). "Reassessment of the size of the Scopoli's Shearwater population at its main breeding site resulted in a tenfold increase: implications for the species conservation".
Journal of Ornithology
.
156
(4): 877?892.
doi
:
10.1007/s10336-015-1187-4
.
- ^
Baccetti, N.; Capizzi, D.; Corbi, F.; Massa, B.; Nissardi, S.; Spano, G.; Sposimo, P. (2009).
"Breeding shearwaters on Italian islands: population size, island selection and co-existence with their main alien predator, the black rat"
.
Rivista Italiana di Ornitologia
.
78
: 83?99.
- ^
Telleria, Jose Luis (1980).
"Autumn migration of Cory's Shearwater through the Straits of Gibraltar"
.
Bird Study
.
27
(1): 21?26.
doi
:
10.1080/00063658009476652
.
- ^
Muller, M.S.; Massa, B.; Phillips, R.A.; Dell’omo, G. (2014).
"Individual consistency and sex differences in migration strategies of Scopoli's shearwaters Calonectris diomedea despite year differences"
.
Current Zoology
.
60
(5): 631?641.
doi
:
10.1093/czoolo/60.5.631
.
hdl
:
10447/102989
.
- ^
De Felipe, F.; Reyes-Gonzalez, J.M.; Militao, T.; Neves, V.C.; Bried, J.; Oro, D.; Ramos, R.; Gonzalez-Solis, J. (2019).
"Does sexual segregation occur during the nonbreeding period? A comparative analysis in spatial and feeding ecology of three
Calonectris
shearwaters"
.
Ecology and Evolution
.
9
(18): 10145?10162.
doi
:
10.1002/ece3.5501
.
PMC
6787824
.
PMID
31624542
.
- ^
Michel, L.; Cianchetti-Benedetti, M.; Catoni, C.; Dell’Omo, G. (2021).
"How shearwaters prey. New insights in foraging behaviour and marine foraging associations using bird-borne video cameras"
.
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.
169
(1): 7.
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:
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.