There are birds typical of cold latitudes that have managed to adapt extremely well to these difficult-to-manage environments. These seabirds from cold areas are typical for being black and white, like penguins and puffins. But do you know if they are related to each other? This time we will talk about the nice Atlantic puffin, Fratercula arctica, the famous bird of northern Europe.
Keep reading this EcologíaVerde article where we will answer if the Atlantic Puffin is a penguin, where the Atlantic Puffin lives and how big the Atlantic Puffin is. Don’t miss the Atlantic puffin, its characteristics, habitat and feeding!
Characteristics of the Atlantic Puffin
The Atlantic puffin, also known as puffin or sea parrot bears the scientific name Fratercula arctica. Some of the most outstanding characteristics of the Atlantic Puffin are the following:
- Recognized for having a very colorful and large triangular beak in black and red tones.
- Their body black, face and abdomen white that resemble a toga: hence its name Fratercula which refers to a friar with a toga.
- Are waterfowl with very short wings: They serve as fins to swim underwater, where they spend most of their lives. Discover other waterfowl: characteristics, types and names, here.
- Have webbed hind feet: like those of a duck, they serve as a rudder to steer and dominate the aquatic environment.
- Not only are they good swimmers, but they also dominate the air environment as they can fly up to 90 kilometers per hour: However, they prefer to live in open water.
- Being marine animals, they have specialized glands in the nostrils: to excrete the salt they take from their environment.
- Although their coloring reminds us of them, they are not related to penguins: Puffins belong to the order Charadiiformes, while penguins are Sphenisciformes.
- Are from average size: on average they measure 30 centimeters, and from wing to tail their wingspan is 60 centimeters.
Notably almost no sound, only when they are near their young. In addition, there are currently about 5 million breeding pairs of Atlantic Puffins. Now that you know how tall the puffin is, let’s see where it lives.
Atlantic Puffin Habitat
Where does the Atlantic Puffin live? The truth is that it is a bird of marine and coastal habits. Lives in the North Atlantic Ocean, including arctic areas.
It covers Great Britain, Iceland, Norway, Greenland, Canada, Scandinavia, northern France, and small islands in the Atlantic Ocean, such as Newfoundland and Labrador. It can be seen in other parts of Europe because it is a migratory bird. In Spain it is very common in winter. They can be seen in Valencia, Alicante and Murcia.
They are animals that change their location habits according to the season. When it is winter they live on the high seas. Passing this season they return to the coasts and stay on slopes with vegetation, on islets or on cliffs.
Do not miss the following EcologíaVerde post on migratory birds: names and photos.
Atlantic Puffin feeding
Being an aquatic bird, its diet is based on what the seas offersuch as crustaceans and small fish.
To hunt them they can catch them from the air, or more frequently, catch them while diving. They can dive to considerable depths of up to 60 meters, something very peculiar for a lung-dwelling bird.
As soon as you catch it swallows it whole to prevent other animals from taking it away. At the same time, its tongue has small grooves with which it can firmly hold its prey without it escaping.
Since you already know the name of the bird that looks like a penguin and what it eats, let’s see how it reproduces.
Reproduction of the Atlantic Puffin
How does the Atlantic Puffin reproduce? Puffins only come close to dry land when it is the breeding season, which occurs during summer and spring with the arrival of warm weather. Recalling its peculiar beak, we return to it in this section as it is an important sexual distinctive.
When it is breeding season the beak changes color to a grayish blue at the base, has yellow lines, turns red at the tip and increases in size. His face also changes color, exhibiting a red circle around his eye. This is for the purpose of becoming more attractive and more visible to their partners. Once the breeding season is over, the bill loses its color and turns gray.
On land, mature adults dig burrows far from shore where they lay their eggs. They cover the ground with soft material such as grass or feathers.
They can also colonize burrows abandoned by rabbits or in holes anchored in mountain slopes. Pairs often return to the same burrow each year. These burrows are part of large puffin colonies called breeding colonies and they are connected to each other to communicate between all the pairs of the colony.
The fertilization is internal type and as a result there is a single egg. This will be hatched inside the nest until the embryonic process is complete, always providing the necessary heat. This process lasts 40 days and the incubation time is divided between the mother and the father.
After this time the Atlantic puffin will emerge from the egg. Here the mother and father give her the necessary food, and she also begins to learn from them. The food of the chicks is the same as that of the adults, based on small fish and crustaceans.
when they have passed 40 days this ready to leave the nest and start your independent life. Juvenile puffins have a dark colored face and black bill. Until they mature they develop the typical colors of an Atlantic puffin, an event that occurs approximately 2 years later.
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