Pachyptila desolata
Silhouette: Alexandre Vong · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
The Antarctic prion (Pachyptila desolata) also known as the dove prion, or totorore in Māori, is the largest of the prions, a genus of small petrels of the Southern Ocean. The Antarctic prion was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the other petrels in the genus Procellaria and coined the binomial name Procellaria desolata. Gmelin based his description on the "brown-banded petrel" that had been described in 1785 by the English ornithologist John Latham from a specimen supplied by the naturalist Joseph Banks that had been collected on the "Isle of Desolation", now the Kerguelen Islands. The Antarctic prion is now one of seven prions placed in the genus Pachyptila that was introduced in 1811 by the German zoologist Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek pakhus meaning "dense" or "thick" with ptilon meaning "feather" or "plumage". The specific epithet desolata is from Latin desolatus meaning "forsaken" or "desolated". The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.
Prions are members of the family Procellariidae...
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands | 🇬🇸 South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands | |
| 2 | Antarctic Peninsula & South Shetland Islands | 🇦🇶 Antarctica | |
| 3 | Table Mountain National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report an Antarctic Prion sighting in Antarctic Peninsula & South Shetland Islands on a given day, based on 165 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 18th most-seen of the 29 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 40%, and over a week to about 70%, if each day is a fresh chance.
January to March
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report an Antarctic Prion in Antarctic Peninsula & South Shetland Islands on a given day, against about 10% in October to December, the lowest months. April to September have too few records to rate.
Between 2 and 5 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Antarctic Prion sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
2nd of 3
Of the 3 parks where we can rate Antarctic Prion sightings, Antarctic Peninsula & South Shetland Islands ranks 2nd at about 10%. The best odds are in South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, about 40%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Antarctic Prion is recorded against all the birds logged in Antarctic Peninsula & South Shetland Islands (165 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.
