Fulmarus glacialis
The northern fulmar, Arctic fulmar, or simply fulmar is an abundant seabird found primarily in subarctic regions of the North Atlantic and North Pacific oceans. There has been one confirmed sighting in the Southern Hemisphere, with a single bird seen south of New Zealand. Fulmars come in one of two colour morphs; a light one in temperate populations, with white head and body and grey wings and tail, and a dark one in arctic populations, which is uniformly grey; intermediate birds are common. Though similar in appearance to gulls, fulmars are in fact members of the family Procellariidae, which includes petrels and shearwaters.

Charles J. Sharp · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- northern fulmarPBDB
- Sits inside
- FulmarusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Procellariiformes
Time the record covers
At least 117 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 129 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
24 occurrences of Fulmarus glacialis on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
24 occurrences- Pleistocene62%
- Holocene38%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
2 formations
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The named rock units Fulmarus glacialis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 22 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Fulmarus glacialis and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Fulmarus glacialis and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
323 taxa- Chendytes lawi13 sites
- Phalacrocorax penicillatus13 sites
- Ptychoramphus aleuticus12 sites
- Uria aalge12 sites
- Phoebastria albatrus11 sites
- Puffinus opisthomelas11 sites
- Ardenna grisea10 sites
- Branta canadensis10 sites
- Synthliboramphus antiquus10 sites
- Anser caerulescens9 sites
- Haliaeetus leucocephalus9 sites
- Buteo jamaicensis8 sites
- Melanitta fusca8 sites
- Melanitta perspicillata8 sites
- Phalacrocorax pelagicus8 sites
- Podiceps nigricollis8 sites
- Larus7 sites
- Phoca hispida7 sites
- Tyto alba7 sites
- Erignathus barbatus6 sites
- Fratercula dowi6 sites
- Rangifer tarandus6 sites
- Aechmophorus5 sites
- Cepphus columba5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 24 sites for Fulmarus glacialis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
17 references- Distribution and provenance of fossil avifauna on San Miguel Island7
- A late Pleistocene avifauna from San Miguel Island, California2
- Polar bear fossil and archaeological records from the Pleistocene and Holocene in relation to sea ice extent and open water polynyas1
- Terminal Pleistocene–Holocene Avifauna of San Miguel and Santa Rosa Islands: Identifications of Previously Unidentified Avian Remains Recovered from Fossil Sites and Prehistoric Cave Deposits1
- Prehistoric human impacts on California birds: evidence from the Emeryville shellmoumd avifauna1
- The Northernmost Ruins of the Globe1
- Seabirds and Late Pleistocene marine environments in the Northeast Atlantic and the Mediterranean1
- The prehistory of the coastal areas of Amdrup Land and Holm Land adjacent to the Northeast Water polynya: an archaeological perspective1
- A zooarchaeological study at Buldir Island, Western Aleutians, Alaska1
- Thule Subsistence and Optimal Diet: A Zooarchaeological Test of a Linear Programming Model1
- A catalogue of late Quaternary vertebrates from California: Part One, nonmarine lower vertebrate and avian taxa1
- Porden Point: An Intrasite Approach to Settlement System Analysis1
Each of the 24 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 5 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content3
Picture of Fulmarus glacialis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Charles J. Sharp
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Fulmarus glacialis glacialis · FMNH:Birds:97307
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itFulmarus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1761)