Macronectes giganteus
Silhouette: Alexandre Vong · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~20%
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... Wikipedia →
Call0:08
Argentina · 2011
© Andrew Spencer · XC89727 · CC BY-NC-ND 2.5
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Península Valdés | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 2 | Tierra del Fuego National Park | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 3 | Table Mountain National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 4 | Garden Route National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 5 | Rakiura National Park | 🇳🇿 New Zealand |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Montevideo | 🇺🇾 Uruguay |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Southern Giant Petrel sighting in Montevideo on a given day, based on 69 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 97th most-seen of the 178 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 20%, if each day is a fresh chance.
June
In that month about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Southern Giant Petrel in Montevideo on a given day, against under 5% in July and September–May, the lowest months.
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.
Only Montevideo, in our data
Montevideo is the only city on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Southern Giant Petrel sightings: under 5% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Southern Giant Petrel is recorded against all the birds logged in Montevideo (69 verified sightings), 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.
