Mystery Bird: Razorbill, Alca torda

Wow, that's some problem diet!

On a more serious note, this is a heavy looking bird, with robust legs. Does it only have three toes, or are we missing something? The legs lead me to think we're looking at something that spends a lot of time on the ground.

The wings are hard to tell from the angle and such.

But the beak is very cool, and again robust. Seed sort of diet?

The tail looks pretty minimal. I'm guessing NOT a peacock :) doh. x2.

Well, I've got it down to the Family level, I think. If it's the species I think it is, the white line crossing the bill would be a useful fieldmark. But I hasten to point out that if it's what I think it is, I've never seen one in life, never having birded the North Atlantic.

The first thing I thought was Dodo, but that's clearly wrong. I'm looking forward to finding out what the answer is.

I'm not 100% sure, but the odd lines on the beak seem to indicate that this creature is some kind of Auk.

Could this be a malnourished Northern Penguin? I hope Pete Moulton does get to see one! As long as he e-mails me immediately, that is.

Ok here's my reasoning (I love bird skeletons!)

The balance of the body, with nice solid hips, and heavy leg bones, suggests a bird that spends a lot of time on the ground. This is supported by stubby wings (those bones are super-short) and the wussy clavicle-coracoid flight stabilization apparatus. My reasoning from this is that it's flightless or nearly so.

The beak and head shape are giving me family, with the watermarks on the beak identifying it as an extinct member of the family (I think). It's not a penguin, but its genus name sure sounds like one.

I am inclined to agree that it was the original penguin (pen gwyn = white head in Welsh). As I recall the (extant) alternative has a smaller head.

Is it a Flightless Auk?

I'm probably confused, but I'm looking at the pictures of a Great Auk skeleton: http://www.shearwater.nl/seabird-osteology/Osteology/Seabird%20Osteolog…

and trying to compare those with a dodo skeleton:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped…

(Sorry about the poor linkage).

Anyway, for a great auk, the neck looks less long and less robust. And the body position looks wrong (though that might be a reconstruction problem).

On the other hand, the feet don't look nearly as robust on this skeleton (and the back toe I don't see) as on the dodo skeleton example.

Which is the long way around of saying I'm way more confused than I thought I was about this bird.

Perhaps a skeleton of the extinct great auk? Particularly the beak matches quite well.

I'm not so sure. The sharply decurved tip to the upper mandible, the lack of a very obvious gonydeal angle, and that white bill marking all don't look like the pictures I've seen of the Flightless One. The wings are stubby, yes, but so are the wings of all the members of this Family. The proportions are different. The FO has a fairly long humerus, and ulna/radius that are only about 2/3 as long as the humerus. This guy has a somewhat longer humerus and ulna/radius about the same length. I'm thinking this is the Sharp-billed One.

Looks like a Dodo to me.

This bird is not extinct. This particular specimen is not looking too sharp, though.

Like Pete Moulton I've never seen one myself, but I'm pretty sure I know what it is.

This is the only extant species in the genus that gave the family it's name.

It's named (in English) for that bill.

Interesting. Based on the hints, it's the one I ruled *out* because of the bill markings. They seemed too complicated for what it actually apparently is. Postmortem changes?

However, now that Bardiac dug up those Great Auk skeleton pics, he's right, it really doesn't look like one (that being my prior guess). The beak shape is wrong. The proportions of the pelvic limbs support a flying-underwater diver, not a foot-propelled diver, and the lack of reinforcement in the keel and coracoid supports a surface diver, rather than plunge diving. So, sharp-billed one it is. Huh.

I think that the links from Bardiac do suggest that the bill is wrong for Great Auk. However the skull shown seems to be missing the horn part of the bill. Was GA like Puffin that loses the distinctive bill in winter? All the stuffed specimens shown in Google have a bill like our skeleton here.
Of course a scale would solve the problem immediately!

So are we thinking a Razorbill now?

I found some pictures of Razorbill skulls (because I'm in grading avoidance mode). Look here: http://www.shearwater.nl/seabird-osteology/Alcidae/Auks%20Razorbill%20s…

The neck looks long, but to my inexperienced and untrained (at skulls) eye, they look pretty similar.

(ps. Is it okay to post links to other sources?)

OK Grrl, thanks for the hints.
You're right Pete, no need to e-mail me when you see one!

bardiac: it's fine to post links to other sources. i will remove broken links (unless i can fix them) from comments and i occasionally will embed commenter's links instead of leaving them hanging out there in the open, but i don't have a problem with links.

This was a hard one for me, but I had lots of fun looking at skeleton pics. Thanks :) I love these mystery birds.