Fact 131: What bird is Puffinus Puffinus the scientific name for?
Fact 131: What bird is Puffinus Puffinus the scientific name for?
Just for a minute let's just bear in mind Rattus Rattus is a Rat and Iguana Iguana is a Iguana and Gerbillus Gerbillus is the scientific name for a Gerbil, so surely Puffinus Puffinus is obviously a bird that lives near the coast and eat small fish (this is unintentionally all true, it is a bird that eats small fish and lives near Walsh and Scottish coasts) however, it is confusingly not a Puffin (good guess though). it is in fact a completely different and unrated bird called a Manx shearwater.
The scientific name for a Puffin is Fratercula, Fratercula is Latin for little brother, the is because the black and white *plumage* was thought to resemble, monastic robes worn by monks.
The word Puffinus is from the original Latin word for a sea-birds, mergus and the old English word Puffin which means swollen (and fat) which is Puffin, and the bird Puffin also gets it name because of the old English meaning of the word Puffin, this is because a Puffin and a Manx shearwater are both fat birds.
*plumage is the word used to collectively refer to the feather on a bird*
