Synthliboramphus antiquus
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~30%
The ancient murrelet (Synthliboramphus antiquus) is a bird in the auk family. The English term "murrelet" is a diminutive of "murre", a word of uncertain origins, but which may imitate the call of the common guillemot. Ancient murrelets are called "ancient" because they have grey on the back like a shawl, as worn by the elderly.
The ancient murrelet 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 auks in the genus Alca and coined the binomial name Alca antiqua. Gmelin based his description on the "ancient auk" that had been described in 1785 by both the English ornithologist John Latham and the Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant. Both authors mention a specimen in the Leverian Museum and give the location as the west of North America, the Kuril Islands and the Kamchatka Peninsula. The ancient murrelet is now one of five species placed in the genus Synthliboramphus that was introduced in 1837 by the German-born naturalist Johann Friedrich von Brandt. The genus name combines Ancient Greek sunthlibō meaning "to compress" with rhamphos meaning "bill"... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenai Fjords National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 2 | Great Bear Rainforest | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 3 | Olympic National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 4 | Pacific Rim National Park Reserve | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 5 | Channel Islands National Park | 🇺🇸 United States |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Guangzhou | 🇨🇳 China | |
| 2 | Seattle | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 3 | San Diego | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 4 | San Francisco | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 5 | Los Angeles | 🇺🇸 United States |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report an Ancient Murrelet sighting in Great Bear Rainforest on a given day, based on 355 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 97th most-seen of the 239 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
February–March, July and September–December
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report an Ancient Murrelet in Great Bear Rainforest on a given day, against under 5% in January, April–June and August, the lowest months.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Ancient Murrelet 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 5
Of the 5 parks where we can rate Ancient Murrelet sightings, Great Bear Rainforest ranks 2nd at under 5%. The best odds are in Kenai Fjords National Park (United States, about 40%).
Same family: Alcidae
The closest relatives of the Ancient Murrelet that you can see in Great Bear Rainforest (family Alcidae, Auks, Murres, and Puffins) are Pigeon Guillemot (about 30%), Marbled Murrelet (about 30%) and Common Murre (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Ancient Murrelet is recorded against all the birds logged in Great Bear Rainforest (355 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.
