Photo © by Joseph Morlan
South Atlantic Ocean - High Seas, (-41.1°,-16.3°) 9 March 2018.
- Pachyptila vittata
Identification
25-30cm (10"-12")
Heaviest-billed of all the prions, with steep forehead giving a bull-headed appearance.
- Grey upperparts
- Dark cap
- Black "W" on wings
- White underparts
- Black tail tip
- Broad flat bill with comb-like fringes.
Distribution
Subantarctic and subtropical seas from SE Atlantic to New Zealand, breeding in southern South Island, New Zealand including islets off Stewart Island, Snares Island and Chatham Island; Tristan da Cunha and Gough Island.
Ranges to Southern Africa (Namibia and South Africa) and Australia.
Taxonomy
This is a monotypic species[1].
A similar prion with narrower bill and more sloping head profile has been found breeding on Gough Island. It has been provisionally identified as a form of Salvin's Prion or sometimes split as a separate species MacGillivray's Prion. However it has not yet been formally described.[3].
Habitat
Open sea; islands for breeding.
Behaviour
Diet
The diet includes planktonic crustaceans; it uses its bill to filter food from the water.
Breeding
They nest in burrows on islands. The single egg is incubated for 50 days and the young fledges 50 days later.
References
- Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2017. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2017, with updates to August 2017. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
- Carboneras, C., Jutglar, F. & Kirwan, G.M. (2018). Broad-billed Prion (Pachyptila vittata). In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. (retrieved from https://www.hbw.com/node/52551 on 20 June 2018).
- Ryan, Peter & Bourgeois, Karen & Dromzée, Sylvain & Dilley, Ben. (2014). The occurrence of two bill morphs of prions Pachyptila vittata on Gough Island. Polar Biology. 37. 727-735. 10.1007/s00300-014-1473-2.
- BirdLife International
- Wikipedia
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2025) Broad-billed Prion. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 2 May 2025 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Broad-billed_Prion
External Links
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