New research finds that the extinction of this flightless bird was completely our fault. By Cara Giaimo Not so long ago, the northern seas were full of great auks. Every summer, millions of the ...

The great auk is one of the most tragic and documented examples of extinction. A flightless bird that bred primarily on the remote islands of the North Atlantic, the last of its kind were killed ...

Quirks and Quarks17:24How documenting the disappearance of the great auk led to the discovery of extinction When species cease to exist, we often say they went "the way of the dodo." But it might ...

The great auk's scientific name, Pinguinus impennis, reflects this. Later on, ... Read more: 12 Animal Species On The Brink Of Extinction. Why Humans Killed All The Great Auks.

Before the last two known birds were killed in 1844 – 180 years ago – it was well known in the world of academia that the Great Auk was in danger of extinction, and everyone wanted to acquire a bird ...

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 ...

As the great auk’s extinction became indisputable, it attracted a particular kind of Victorian sentimentality. In Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies (1863), the chimney-sweep Tom meets the last great ...

It was one of the mightiest birds ever to walk on Scotland’s shores, but was hunted to extinction more than a century ago. The Great Auk stood three feet tall and lived like a penguin ...

Pictured below is the last remaining specimen of a British great auk, a flightless seabird driven to extinction in the nineteenth century. It is a lesson in what can happen to an ocean-dwelling ...

The great auk is one of the most tragic and documented examples of extinction. A flightless bird that bred primarily on the remote islands of the North Atlantic, the last of its kind were killed ...

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 ...