Halobaena caerulea
The blue petrel is a small seabird in the shearwater and petrel family, Procellariidae. This small petrel is the only member of the genus Halobaena, but is closely allied to the prions. It is distributed across the Southern Ocean but breeds at a few island sites, all close to the Antarctic Convergence zone.

JJ Harrison ( https://tiny.jjharrison.com.au/t/JieH9NbS0fOOjZpX ) · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
- blue petrelPBDB
- Sits inside
- HalobaenaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Procellariiformes
- Mass
- 210 gWikidata
Time the record covers
At most 12 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Halobaena caerulea on record, most of them in the Holocene. 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
2 occurrences- Holocene100%
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.
Halobaena caerulea and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Halobaena caerulea and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
15 taxa- Pachyptila desolata2 sites
- Pelecanoides urinatrix2 sites
- Pterodroma lessonii2 sites
- Puffinus assimilis elegans2 sites
- Anas1 site
- Anas superciliosa1 site
- Ardenna grisea1 site
- Ardenna tenuirostris1 site
- Cyanoramphus novaezelandiae1 site
- Eudyptes chrysocome filholi1 site
- Eudyptes schlegeli1 site
- Gallirallus philippensis macquariensis1 site
- Macronectes giganteus1 site
- Stercorarius antarcticus lonnbergi1 site
- Thalassarche chrysostoma1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Halobaena caerulea, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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
1 referenceEach of the 2 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Halobaena caerulea
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- JJ Harrison ( https://tiny.jjharrison.com.au/t/JieH9NbS0fOOjZpX )
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Halobaena caerulea · l-jz:JZ:22
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Blue petrel”
- 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 itHalobaena through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gmelin 1789)