The Tragic End of the Great Auk

Holocene Extinction Episode 4: The Great Auk

The Great Auk or Pinguinus impennis is the equivalent of the penguins in the northern hemisphere, in fact, the early sailors who ventured far into the Antarctic seas in the southern hemisphere used the great auk's generic name "Pinguinus" to call the flightless birds there now formally known as "penguin" due to their similar appearance and probably behaviour. Sadly, the great auks were subjected to excessive hunting by humans which caused their species to cease to exist.

Sources:
[1] https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/fi...
[2] https://www.esc.cam.ac.uk/aukward-tru...
[3] https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/2...
[4] https://books.google.co.id/books?id=G...
[5] https://johnjames.audubon.org/extinct...
[6] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
[7] https://www.britannica.com/animal/gre...
[8] https://theconversation.com/how-were-...
[9] https://www.nytimes.com/1971/03/07/ar...
[10] https://education.nationalgeographic....
[11] https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_ca...

Image credits:
Great auk variation
F. W. Frohawk (D. 1946), R. Dieck, H. Klönne and Bruno Geisler (d. 1945).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gr...

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