The Prions are small petrel

Petrel

Petrels are tube-nosed seabirds in the bird order Procellariiformes. The common name does not indicate relationship beyond that point, as "petrels" occur in three of the four families within that group...

s in the genera

Genera

Genera is a commercial operating system and development environment for Lisp machines developed by Symbolics. It is essentially a fork of an earlier operating system originating on the MIT AI Lab's Lisp machines which Symbolics had used in common with LMI and Texas Instruments...

 Pachyptila

Pachyptila

Pachyptila is a genus from the family Procellariidae and the Procellariiformes order. The members of this genus and the Blue Petrel form a sub-group called Prions.-Etymology:...

and Halobaena. They form one of the four groups within the Procellariidae

Procellariidae

The family Procellariidae is a group of seabirds that comprises the fulmarine petrels, the gadfly petrels, the prions, and the shearwaters. This family is part of the bird order Procellariiformes , which also includes the albatrosses, the storm-petrels, and the diving petrels.The procellariids are...

 (also referred to as the prions), along with the gadfly petrel

Gadfly petrel

The gadfly petrels are seabirds in the bird order Procellariiformes. These medium to large petrels feed on food items picked from the ocean surface....

s, shearwater

Shearwater

Shearwaters are medium-sized long-winged seabirds. There are more than 30 species of shearwaters, a few larger ones in the genus Calonectris and many smaller species in the genus Puffinus...

s and fulmarine petrel

Fulmarine petrel

The fulmarine petrels or fulmar-petrels are a distinct group of petrels within the procellariidae family. They are the most variable of the four groups within the Procellariidae, differing greatly in size and biology. They do have, however, have a unifying feature, their skull, and in particular...

s.

They are found in the Southern Ocean

Southern Ocean

The Southern Ocean comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60°S latitude and encircling Antarctica. It is usually regarded as the fourth-largest of the five principal oceanic divisions...

 and breed on a number of subantarctic

Subantarctic

The Subantarctic is a region in the southern hemisphere, located immediately north of the Antarctic region. This translates roughly to a latitude of between 46° – 60° south of the Equator. The subantarctic region includes many islands in the southern parts of the Indian Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and...

 islands. Prions grow 20 to 27 cm (7.9 to 10.6 in) long, and have blue-grey upper parts and white underparts. Three species of prion have flattened bills with a fringe of lamellae

Lamellae (zoology)

thumb|Lamellae on a gecko's foot.A lamella is a thin plate-like structure, often one amongst many lamellae very close to one another, with open space between...

 that act as strainers for zooplankton

Zooplankton

Zooplankton are heterotrophic plankton. Plankton are organisms drifting in oceans, seas, and bodies of fresh water. The word "zooplankton" is derived from the Greek zoon , meaning "animal", and , meaning "wanderer" or "drifter"...

. All prions are marine and feed on small crustacea such as copepod

Copepod

Copepods are a group of small crustaceans found in the sea and nearly every freshwater habitat. Some species are planktonic , some are benthic , and some continental species may live in limno-terrestrial habitats and other wet terrestrial places, such as swamps, under leaf fall in wet forests,...

s, ostracod

Ostracod

Ostracoda is a class of the Crustacea, sometimes known as the seed shrimp because of their appearance. Some 65,000 species have been identified, grouped into several orders....

s, decapod

Decapoda

The decapods or Decapoda are an order of crustaceans within the class Malacostraca, including many familiar groups, such as crayfish, crabs, lobsters, prawns and shrimp. Most decapods are scavengers. It is estimated that the order contains nearly 15,000 species in around 2,700 genera, with...

s, and krill

Krill

Krill is the common name given to the order Euphausiacea of shrimp-like marine crustaceans. Also known as euphausiids, these small invertebrates are found in all oceans of the world...

, as well as some fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

 such as myctophids and nototheniids.

List of species

• Pachyptila
  • Pachyptila turtur, Fairy Prion
    Fairy Prion
    The Fairy Prion is a small seabird with the standard prion plumage of black upperparts and white underneath with an "M" wing marking.-Taxonomy:...
    
    
  • Pachyptila belcheri, Slender-billed Prion
    Slender-billed Prion
    The Slender-billed Prion or Thin-billed Prion, Pachyptila belcheri, is a species of seabird in the Procellariidae family.It is found in the southern oceans.-Taxonomy:...
    
    
  • Pachyptila crassirostris, Fulmar Prion
    Fulmar Prion
    The Fulmar Prion, Pachyptila crassirostris, is a species of seabird in the Procellariidae family, found in the southern oceans-Taxonomy:...
    
    
  • Pachyptila vittata, Broad-billed Prion
    Broad-billed Prion
    The Broad-billed Prion, Pachyptila vittata, is a small seabird, but the largest Prion, with grey upperparts plumage, and white underparts. It has many other names that have been used such as Blue-billed Dove-petrel, Broad-billed Dove-petrel, Long-billed Prion, Common Prion, Icebird, and...
    
    
  • Pachyptila desolata, Antarctic Prion
    Antarctic Prion
    The Antarctic Prion, Pachyptila desolata, also known as the Dove Prion, or Totorore in Maori, is the largest of the prions, a genus of small petrels of the Southern Ocean.-Taxonomy:...
    
    
  • Pachyptila salvini, Salvin's Prion

• Halobaena
  • Halobaena caerulea, Blue Petrel
    Blue Petrel
    The Blue Petrel is a small seabird in the family Procellariidae. This small petrel is the only member of the genus Halobaena but is closely allied to the prions.-Taxonomy:...
    
    

In addition, fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

 remains of some hitherto undescribed prehistoric species have been found. The oldest is from the Late Miocene

Late Miocene

The Late Miocene is a sub-epoch of the Miocene Epoch made up of two stages. The Tortonian and Messinian stages comprise the Late Miocene sub-epoch....

 (Tortonian

Tortonian

The Tortonian is in the geologic timescale an age or stage of the late Miocene that spans the time between 11.608 ± 0.005 Ma and 7.246 ± 0.005 Ma . It follows the Serravallian and is followed by the Messinian....

, some 7-12 million years ago) of the Bahía Inglesa Formation in Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

.

External links

• Antarctic Prion homes on their life mate through smell