White-chinned Petrel

About the White-chinned Petrel

The white-chinned petrel (Procellaria aequinoctialis) also known as the Cape hen and shoemaker, is a large petrel in the family Procellariidae. It ranges around the Southern Ocean as far north as southern Australia, Peru and Namibia, and breeds colonially on scattered islands. The white-chinned petrel was formerly considered to be conspecific with the spectacled petrel (Procellaria conspicillata).

In 1747 the English naturalist George Edwards included an illustration and a description of the white-chinned petrel in the second volume of his A Natural History of Uncommon Birds. He used the English name "The great Black Peteril" and based his hand-coloured etching on a preserved specimen that had been brought to London. He believed that it had been collected near the Cape of Good Hope. When in 1758 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the tenth edition, he placed the white-chinned petrel with the other petrels in the genus Procellaria. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Procellaria aequinoctialis and cited Edwards' work.

There are two subspecies: P. a. aequinoctialis - breeds on islets of the temperate and subantarctic... Wikipedia →