Petrel de las Bonin

Identificación

The Bonin petrel is a small gadfly petrel, 30 cm long with a wingspan of around 67 cm. It has a white head with a black cap and face markings; overall the head often has a scaled appearance. Its pale grey upperparts have darker primaries and wing coverts creating an "M" mark across the back. The underwing is white with dark edging and a patch at the carpal joint and across underwing coverts. The tail is dark grey, and the rest of the plumage is white, except for a dark half collar on the breast. Like the rest of the Pterodroma petrels the black bill is short and hooked. The legs and feet are pink with dark patches.

Taxonomía

The Bonin petrel was formally described in 1888 by the English naturalist Osbert Salvin and given the binomial name Oestrelata hypoleuca. He specified the type location as the "Krusenstern Islands" instead of one of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The Bonin petrel is now placed with the other gadfly petrels in the genus Pterodroma that was introduced by French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte in 1856. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek pteron meaning "wing" with dromos meaning "racer" or "runner". The specific epithet hypoleuca is from the Ancient Greek hupi meaning "beneath" with leukos meaning "white". Despite the species having two remote and separate breeding localities the species is monotypic and no subspecies are recognised.<p>The Bonin petrel is currently thought to be closely related to the mottled petrel and white-necked petrel in the subgenus Proaestrelata, based on a review of the whole genus Pterodroma looking at morphology, calls, breeding biology, diet and parasitic lice.

Nombre científico

Pterodroma hypoleuca

Autoridad

(Salvin, 1888)

Orden

Procellariiformes

Familia

Proceláridos

Género

Pterodroma

Distribución y hábitat

Despite the species's name, 995,000 individuals, about 99% of the total population, breed on the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, while 5,000 individuals (1% of the population) breed off the coast of Japan on the Ogasawara and Volcano Islands.

Área de cría

PO : Ogasawara Is. (=Bonin) and Iwo Is. (=Volcano; se of Japan) and Kure Atoll to French Frigate Shoals (Northwestern Hawaiian Is.)

Área no reproductiva

to Honshu (c Japan), Sakhalin and Kuril Is. (se Russia)

Migración

Migrantes completos

Comportamiento

Patrón migratorio: Migrantes completos.

Conservación

Tendencia poblacional: en declive.

Tendencia poblacional

en declive