Macronectes giganteus
Silhouette: Alexandre Vong · PhyloPic
The southern giant petrel (Macronectes giganteus), also known as the Antarctic giant petrel, giant fulmar, stinker, and stinkpot, is a large seabird of the southern oceans. Its distribution overlaps broadly with the similar northern giant petrel, though it overall is centered slightly further south. Adults of the two species can be distinguished by the colour of their bill-tip: greenish in the southern and reddish in the northern.
The southern giant petrel was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin. He placed it with all the other petrels in the genus Procellaria and coined the binomial name Procellaria gigantea. Gmelin cited the "giant petrel" that had been described and illustrated in 1785 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his A General Synopsis of Birds.
The southern giant petrel is now placed with the northern giant petrel in the genus Macronectes that was introduced in 1905 by the American ornithologist Charles Wallace Richmond. The genus name Macronectes combines the Ancient Greek makros meaning "great" and nēktēs meaning "swimmer". The specific epithet giganteus is Latin, derived from Greek "gigas", and means "gigantic...
Call0:08
Argentina · 2011
© Andrew Spencer · XC89727 · CC BY-NC-ND 2.5
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Antarctic Peninsula & South Shetland Islands | 🇦🇶 Antarctica | |
| 2 | South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands | 🇬🇸 South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands | |
| 3 | Península Valdés | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 4 | Falkland Islands | 🇫🇰 Falkland Islands | |
| 5 | Tierra del Fuego National Park | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 6 | Table Mountain National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 7 | Garden Route National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 8 | Rakiura National Park | 🇳🇿 New Zealand |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Montevideo | 🇺🇾 Uruguay |
Very likely
About 90% of wildlife watchers report a Southern Giant Petrel sighting in Antarctic Peninsula & South Shetland Islands on a given day, based on 1,962 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 2nd most-seen of the 29 birds we can rate there.
November to March
In those months about 90% of wildlife watchers report a Southern Giant Petrel in Antarctic Peninsula & South Shetland Islands on a given day, against about 80% in October, the lowest month. April to September have too few records to rate.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Southern Giant Petrel sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Yes
Of the 8 parks where we can rate Southern Giant Petrel sightings, Antarctic Peninsula & South Shetland Islands has the highest daily chance: about 90%. Next come South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, about 80%) and Península Valdés (Argentina, about 70%). All parks ranked.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Southern Giant Petrel is recorded against all the birds logged in Antarctic Peninsula & South Shetland Islands (1,962 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.
