Great auk
Great auk in LOST ZOO
The flightless Great auk was the largest auk species of the present time.
The Great auk was black with a white front. Characteristic for this auk are a large white spot over each eye and its large black beak with eight or transverse grooves on the upper and lower mandible.
Because of its extremely short wings and its large body weight the Great auk was flightless. Although clumsy on land, the Great auk was very active in the water and an excellent swimmer and diver.
Great auks’ natural predator was especially the Polar bear. Therefore the birds nested only on rocky islands which were far off the mainland’s coast.
The Great auk was a flightless seabird, which lived in the cold North Atlantic and nested in extremely dense and social colonies on rocky islands off the cold North Atlantic coasts of Canada, northeastern US, Greenland, Iceland, Norway and Great Britain.
Body height: 75 cm
Body weight: 5 kg
Nest & Egg: They had no nest, but laid the single egg on bare rocks. The white egg with brown marbling measured 12-13 cm in length and 7.5-8 cm across its widest point.
Habitat: Only during the breeding season the Great auks were found on the islands. For the rest of the year, they spent their time foraging for food in the waters of the cold North Atlantic.
Extinction: By over-hunting for its feathers, meat, fat and oil the Great auk was driven to extinction. When the Great auks became scarcer, the demand of European museums and private collectors to get skins and eggs of this rare species were another cause of their extinction. - In July 1844 the last two confirmed specimens were killed on an island, off the coast of Iceland. A record of a bird in 1852 is considered to be the last sighting of the species.
