The Barolo Shearwater (Puffinus baroli), also known as the North Atlantic Little Shearwater or Macaronesian Shearwater, is a small shearwater which breeds in the Azores and the Canary Islands of Macaronesia in the North Atlantic Ocean. The epithet commemorates the Italian marquis Carlo Tancredi Falletti di Barolo.

Taxonomy

It was previously considered conspecific with the Little Shearwater (Puffinus assimilis) of the Southern Hemisphere. mtDNA cytochrome b sequence analysis (Austin et al., 2004) indicates, however, that baroli and boydi are very close to the nominate subspecies of Audubon's Shearwater. Whether the morphological distinctness and the non-overlapping ranges, or the genetic similarity^[1] are considered to be more significant is presently a matter of opinion, and the taxonomic status of these birds remains equivocal. Although some institutions (such as BirdLife International) retain the forms baroli and boydi within Little Shearwater, this is as a result of inaccurate lumping in the past, and is not supported by modern evidence. The BOU has accepted P. baroli as a distinct species (Sangster et al. 2005), as has the Clements checklist.

Description

Features that distinguish the Barolo Shearwater from the Manx Shearwater and other North Atlantic Puffinus species include the pale face, silvery panel in the upperwings, shorter more rounded wings, and blue feet.^[2]

References

Notes

General

• Austin, Jeremy J.; Bretagnolle, Vincent & Pasquet, Eric (2004): A global molecular phylogeny of the small Puffinus shearwaters and implications for systematics of the Little–Audubon's Shearwater complex. Auk 121(3): 847–864. DOI: 10.1642/0004-8038(2004)121[0847:AGMPOT]2.0.CO;2 HTML abstract
• Collinson, M. (2006): Splitting headaches? Recent taxonomic changes affecting the British and Western Palaearctic lists. British Birds 99(6): 306–323.
• Rheindt, F. E. & Austin, Jeremy J. (2005): Major analytical and conceptual shortcomings in a recent taxonomic revision of the Procellariiformes—A reply to Penhallurick and Wink (2004). Emu 105(2): 181–186 PDF full text
• Sangster, G.; Collinson, J. M.; Helbig, A. J.; Knox, A. G. & Parkin, D. T. (2005) Taxonomic recommendations for British birds: third report. Ibis 147(4): 821–826. DOI: 10.1111/j.1474-919X.2005.00483.x

Identification

• McGeehan, Anthony; Mullarney, Killian (1995). "A little help". Birdwatch 39: 38–42. 
• Martin, John; Rowlands, Adam (2001). "Small Wonders". Birdwatch 114: 22–25.