Great Auk

Also known as Garefowl, Northern Penguin, Geirfugl

Great auks were powerful, flightless pelagic divers that spent most of the year foraging across the frigid waters of the North Atlantic. Pairs formed monogamous lifetime bonds, reuniting each spring on isolated, predator-free rocky islands to incubate a single large, pyriform egg directly on bare stone. Ruthless overhunting by sailors for down, meat, oil, and collector specimens ultimately drove the species to extinction by the mid-nineteenth century.