Thalassoica antarctica
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~30% in a week ~50%
The Antarctic petrel (Thalassoica antarctica) is a boldly marked dark brown and white petrel, found in Antarctica, most commonly in the Ross and Weddell Seas. They eat Antarctic krill, fish, and small squid. They feed while swimming but can dive from both the surface and the air.
Captain James Cook saw the Antarctic petrel on his second voyage to the south Pacific. In 1773 both Cook and the naturalist Georg Forster mentioned the petrel in their separate accounts of the voyage. Forster wrote: On the 17th, in the forenoon, we crossed the antarctic circle, and advanced into the southern frigid zone, which had hitherto remained impenetrable to all navigators. Some days before this period we had seen a new species of petrel, of a brown colour, with a white belly and rump, and a large white spot on the wings, which we now named the antarctic petrel, as we saw great flights of twenty on thirty of them hereabouts, of which we shot many that
unfortunately never fell into the ship. Based on these reports in 1783 the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon included the petrel as "Le pétrel antarctique ou Damier brun" in his Histoire Naturelle des...
Call1:00
Antarctica · 2008
© Stein Ø. Nilsen · XC305318 · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Antarctic Peninsula & South Shetland Islands | 🇦🇶 Antarctica |
More parks will be added in future updates.
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report an Antarctic Petrel sighting in Antarctic Peninsula & South Shetland Islands on a given day, based on 176 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 21st most-seen of the 29 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 30%, and over a week to about 50%, if each day is a fresh chance.
November and December
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report an Antarctic Petrel in Antarctic Peninsula & South Shetland Islands on a given day, against under 5% in March, the lowest month. April to September have too few records to rate.
Between 1 and 4 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Antarctic Petrel sightings with a recorded time, and about 7 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Antarctic Peninsula & South Shetland Islands, in our data
Antarctic Peninsula & South Shetland Islands is the only park on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Antarctic Petrel sightings: about 10% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same family: Procellariidae
The closest relatives of the Antarctic Petrel that you can see in Antarctic Peninsula & South Shetland Islands (family Procellariidae, Shearwaters and Petrels) are Southern Giant Petrel (about 90%), Southern Fulmar (about 70%) and Cape Petrel (about 60%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Antarctic Petrel is recorded against all the birds logged in Antarctic Peninsula & South Shetland Islands (176 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
