Pterodroma mollis madeira, or freira, is a small seabird in the gadfly petrel genus which is endemic to the island of Madeira. It is Europe’s most endangered seabirds, with breeding areas restricted to a few ledges high in the central mountains of Madeiran. The species was raised to species status because of differences in morphology, calls, breeding behaviour and mitochondrial DNA.
About Zino’s petrel in brief
Pterodroma mollis madeira, or freira, is a small seabird in the gadfly petrel genus which is endemic to the island of Madeira. Zino’s was formerly considered to be a subspecies of the soft-plumaged petrel, but they are not closely related. The species was raised to species status because of differences in morphology, calls, breeding behaviour and mitochondrial DNA. It is Europe’s most endangered seabirds, with breeding areas restricted to a few ledges high in the central mountains of Madeiran. It remains endangered on the IUCN Red List, and conservation efforts had a major setback in August 2010 when fires killed three adults and 65% of the chicks. The genus name is derived from Greek πτρά, dromos, swift, and refers to the bird’s erratic flight and swift-running flight. It was first recorded in 1903 by German naturalist and priest Ernst Johann Schmitz, who failed to realise that they were different from the Fea’s petrels he had seen in Desertas. Following the recognition of the Madeirans as full species, they were named after the Portuguese ornithologist, Paul Zino, who was instrumental in their conservation during the latter half of the twentieth century. The population has recovered to 65–80 breeding pairs, but is still at risk from introduced cats, rats and grazing animals which trample the burrows. It nests in burrows which are visited only at night, to the accompaniment of their haunting calls. The single white egg is incubated by both adults, one sitting during the day while the other feeds on fish and squid at sea.
It has a grey back and wings, with a dark \”W\” marking across the wings, and a grey upper tail. The undersides of the wings are blackish apart from a triangle of white at the front edge near the body, and the belly is white with grey flanks. The bird is very similar in appearance to the slightly larger Fea’s petrel and separating these two Macaronesian species at sea is very challenging. Genetic evidence shows the three MacarONESian species are each other’s closest relatives. The two species diverged at the end of the Early Pleistocene, 850,000 years ago, and may have arisen from separate colonisations of mainland Madeira and, later, the Desertas Islands. This suggests that despite the close physical proximity of the two species of gad fly petrel found in the Madeira archipelago, they may have been separated from each other for some time. The Bermuda petrel or Cahow may be the closest relative of the Macaronsian birds. The birds are most similar to those of the BermudaPetrel, whereas Fea’re petrel’s lice are like those of Caribbean and Pacific Pterodroma species. They have long been isolated, since lice can normally only be transferred through physical contact in the nest. An analysis of feather lice taken from the two seab birds in terms of the parasites they carried, suggests that there were marked differences between them.
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This page is based on the article Zino’s petrel published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
