Great auks (Pinguinus impennis) were large flightless birds that thrived on rocky islands in the North Atlantic for thousands of years. However, humans hunted them to extinction within just a few ...

In June 1844, farmers Jón Brandsson and Sigurður Ísleifsson, along with 12 others, made the perilous journey by boat from Iceland to the island of Eldey. They were searching for great auks: black and ...

The Great Auk: Its Extraordinary Life, Hideous Death and Mysterious Afterlife by Tim Birkhead (Bloomsbury, 2025). ISBN: 9781399415743. Hbk, £20.

During summers of my college years, I was a counselor at Camp Keewaydin near Middlebury, Vt., where pranks were attributed to the “Great Auk.” For instance, some of us, under cover of dark, rolled a ...