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The great auk went extinct in the 1800s due to overhunting by humans for food. The last two known great auks lived on an island near Iceland and were clubbed to death by sailors. There have been no known sightings since. [95] The great auk has been identified as a good candidate for de-extinction by Revive and Restore, a non-profit organization.
The last colony of great auks lived on Geirfuglasker (the "Great Auk Rock") off Iceland. This islet was a volcanic rock surrounded by cliffs that made it inaccessible to humans, but in 1830, the islet submerged after a volcanic eruption, and the birds moved to the nearby island of Eldey , which was accessible from a single side.
' Great Auk Stack '), [2] or Freykja (), [citation needed] is a small, uninhabited island in the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago. [1] [2] Geirfuglasker is located approximately 30 kilometres (19 mi) off Iceland's southwestern coast. [1] [2] The island hosted one of the last known colony of great auks, which thrived given its inaccessibility to humans.
The rough surf around the island usually made it inaccessible to humans, and one of the last refuges for the flightless bird the great auk (which was also called "garefowl" — "geirfugl" in Icelandic). In a volcanic eruption in 1830 this rock submerged. The surviving great auks moved to a nearby island called Eldey and were wiped out by humans ...
Birds portal; Great auk is part of WikiProject Birds, an attempt at creating a standardized, informative and easy-to-use ornithological resource.If you would like to participate, visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.
The great auk was a large flightless bird that lived in the Northern Hemisphere. It had a large, intricately grooved beak. When the first settlers arrived in Iceland, the auk population was probably in the millions. However, the settlers found the auks to be “very good and nourishing meat.”
Pinguinus alfrednewtoni was the closest known relative of the great auk (P. impennis). Although P. alfrednewtoni had been considered a sister taxon to the more recent great auk since its description in the 70s, it and many other extinct auks had not been included in phylogenetic analysis until 2011.
The Great Auk. Southborough, Kent: Errol Fuller. ISBN 0-9533553-0-6. The book of more than 450 pages is entirely devoted to the extinct great auk (Pinguinus impennis). It holds, apart from detailed descriptions of the history, ecology, habits and distribution of the "garefowl" (an old English name), a great many illustrations – often dating ...