Rapa Shearwater

SCI Name:  Puffinus myrtae
Protonym:  Puffinus assimilis myrtae Emu 59 p.212,213
Taxonomy:  Procellariiformes / Procellariidae / Puffinus
Taxonomy Code:  towshe3
Type Locality:  Rapa Island, Austral Group.
Author:  Bourne
Publish Year:  1959
IUCN Status:  Critically Endangered

DEFINITIONS

PUFFINUS
(Procellariidae; Ϯ Manx Shearwater P. puffinus)  English names Puffing (c. 1502) or Puffin (c. 1508), originally applied to the cured carcass of the fat nestling shearwater, a delicacy until the end of the 18th century (cf. Med. L. paphinus puffin; Late Med. L. puphinus puffin or shearwater). By confusion and association the name was gradually also applied to the Atlantic Puffin, becoming fixed on that species during the second half of the 19th century, but retained in ornithology as a generic name for the shearwaters (see Lockwood 1984, 121-122); "Genre du Puffin.  Genus Puffini" (Brisson 1760): based on "Puffinus" of Jonston 1650-1653, and Sibbald 1684, “Puffin of the Isle of Man” of Willughby 1676, and "Shear-Water" of Ray 1713; "Puffinus Brisson, Orn., 1, 1760, p. 56; 6, p. 130. Type, by tautonymy, Puffinus [puffinus] Brisson = Procellaria puffinus Brünnich." (Peters 1931, 1, 53).
Var. Pufflnus.
Synon. Alphapuffinus, Cinathisma, Cymotomus, Microzalias, Nectris, Reinholdia, Rhipornis, Thyellas, Zalias.
● (syn. Fratercula Ϯ Atlantic Puffin F. arctica)  "Puffin, (Puffinus, Will.)   Common Puffin    Puffinus flavirostris, (W.)" (C. T. Wood 1836).

puffinus
English name Puffin (c. 1508), applied to the cured carcass of the nestling shearwater; ex “Skrabe” of Debes 1676, “Puffin of the Isle of Man” of Willughby 1676, and Puffinus Brisson 1760 (Puffinus).

myrtae
● Myrtle Ellen Morgan née Green (b. 1879) wife of Australian oculist and ornithologist Dr Alexander M. Morgan (syn. Barnardius zonarius).
● Etymology undiscovered; perhaps an eponym (Bourne 1959, Emu, 59 (3), 212) (OD per Björn Bergenholtz) (Puffinus).