What Exactly is: Great Auk | The Original Penguin

We discovered Great Auk way before we discovered what we now know as penguins. Penguin was a name for the great auks, so we called penguins “penguin” because they resemble the great auks. Nowadays, the opposite usually happens. People call Great Auk “northern penguin” because they resemble what we now know as penguin. Regardless, let the tale of the Great Auk be a lesson for us. *Timestamps* 0:00 Opening thought 0:38 Taxonomy and general information 2:02 “The Original Penguin” 3:12 Extinction 5:26 Morphological characteristics 6:28 Lifestyle and behaviour 8:05 Closest relatives and fossil record 9:23 Bringing them back to life *References* Thomas, J. E., Carvalho, G. R., Haile, J., et al. (2019). Demographic reconstruction from ancient DNA supports rapid extinction of the great auk. eLife, 8: e47509. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.47509 Crofford, E. (1989). Gone Forever: The Great Auk. New York: Crestwood House. pp. 43-44 Pinguinus impennis (Linnaeus, 1758) in Döring M (2022). English Wikipedia - Species Pages. Wikimedia Foundation. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/c3kkgh accessed via GBIF.org on 2025-01-06. Moum, T., Arnason, U., & Árnason, E. (2002). Mitochondrial DNA Sequence Evolution and Phylogeny of the Atlantic Alcidae, Including the Extinct Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis), Molecular Biology and Evolution, 19(9), 1434–1439, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a004206 Thomas, G. H., Wills, M. A., & Székely, T. (2004). A supertree approach to shorebird phylogeny. BMC evolutionary biology, 4, 28. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-4-28 Olson, S.L. (1977). A Great Auk, Pinguinis, From the Pliocene of North Carolina (Aves: Alcidae). Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 90(3), 690-697. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/part/50117 *Outro* Bubbles Drifting in the Morning Breeze - Artificial.Music & Akosmo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS4hkYXuasE Join the channel's membership: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6eT6uO4hgkRZPXOSMJw-dQ/join