The Balearic shearwater (Puffinus mauretanicus) is a medium-sized shearwater in the seabird family Procellariidae. Puffinus is a Neo-Latin loanword based on the English "puffin" and its variants, that referred to the cured carcass of the fat nestling of the Manx shearwater, a former delicacy. The specific mauretanicus refers to Mauretania, an old name for an area of North Africa roughly corresponding to Morocco and Algeria.
The Balearic shearwater was formerly described in 1921 by the English ornithologist Percy Lowe. He treated it as a subspecies of the Manx shearwater and coined the trinomial name Puffinus puffinus mauretanicus.
The Balearic shearwater was long regarded a subspecies of the Manx shearwater. Following an initial split, it was held to be a subspecies of the "Mediterranean shearwater" for nearly ten more years, until it was resolved to be a distinct species, separate from the yelkouan shearwater. It is the last taxon of the Puffinus complex that was recognized as a separate entity.
A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2021 found very little genetic difference between the Balearic shearwater and the yelkouan shearwater (Puffinus yelkouan). The authors of the study suggested that these two taxa might be better considered as conspecific.
It appears to belong to a group of Mediterranean and adjacent Atlantic species which includes the yelkouan shearwater and one to three prehistorically extinct taxa, Hole's and possibly also Olson's shearwater and an undescribed form of unclear distinctness from Menorca. Hole's shearwater may be the closest known relative of P. mauretanicus. The two living Mediterranean lineages had probably separated before the end of the Pliocene (c. 2 mya), as indicated by molecular differences and the Ibizan fossil Puffinus nestori from the Late Pliocene or Early Pleistocene, which may have been the direct ancestor of the present species.
Balearic shearwater is in length and has a wingspan of . It has the typically "shearing" flight of the genus, dipping from side to side on stiff wings with few wingbeats, the wingtips almost touching the water.
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The Balearic shearwater (Puffinus mauretanicus) is a medium-sized shearwater in the seabird family Procellariidae. Puffinus is a Neo-Latin loanword based on the English "puffin" and its variants, that referred to the cured carcass of the fat nestling of the Manx shearwater, a former delicacy. The specific mauretanicus refers to Mauretania, an old name for an area of North Africa roughly corresponding to Morocco and Algeria. The Balearic shearwater was formerly described in 1921 by the English ornithologist Percy Lowe.
The Mediterranean Sea (ˌmɛdɪtəˈreɪniən ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant in West Asia. The Mediterranean has played a central role in the history of Western civilization. Geological evidence indicates that around 5.