AT A GLANCE
- Common Name: Crested Auklet
- Scientific Name: Aethia cristatella
- Category: Birds
- Subcategory: Auks & Puffins
- Range: Northern Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea, breeding on remote volcanic islands from the Aleutians and Pribilofs to Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands
- Habitat Type: Subarctic and arctic pelagic open ocean waters, pack ice edges, and rugged volcanic island talus slopes and sea cliff boulder fields
- IUCN Red List Status: Least Concern
- Lifespan: 15 to 25 years
- Diet: Planktivorous (primarily pelagic euphausiid krill such as Thysanoessa, alongside calanoid copepods, hyperiid amphipods, and larval invertebrates)
- Average Size/Weight: Length 24 to 27 cm; wingspan 45 to 50 cm; weight 220 to 300 g
- Key Defining Feature: Dapper, slate-grey subarctic seabird with a whimsical forward-curling forehead plume, glowing orange bill plates, and a remarkably pungent natural citrus-tangerine fragrance
Overview
The Crested Auklet (Aethia cristatella) is an eccentric, highly social pelagic alcid native to the icy, tempestuous waters of the northern Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. Renowned for its theatrical appearance, this small seabird sports a jaunty, forward-arching topknot plume of dark feathers curling over its bright orange bill, paired with striking white plumes trailing behind its pale eyes. Most extraordinarily, it possesses a powerful, all-natural perfume: during the summer breeding season, colonies emit a rich, intoxicating scent of fresh tangerines that can be smelled by mariners miles out to sea.
Biology and Physical Characteristics
Aethia cristatella has a compact, chunky body clad in uniform dark brownish-black or slate-grey plumage. Its breeding ornamentation is magnificent: a forward-curving crest of 12 to 20 thin black feathers loops elegantly over the forehead. Its heavy, laterally compressed bill develops bright tangerine-orange rhamphothecal plates during breeding, adorned with a white curved accessory plate at the gape. A slender white whisker-like feather plume sweeps backward from behind each pale white eye. During the courtship season, specialized wick-like specialized feathers on its neck and nape secrete a chemical cocktail of aldehyde volatiles (octanal and decanal) that generate its signature potent citrus fragrance.
Behavior and Ecology
Crested Auklets gather in colossal breeding colonies numbering in the hundreds of thousands on rugged volcanic islands. Their courtship ritual involves a charming ‘ruff-sniff’ display: pairs bow to each other, rub bills, and deeply bury their faces into each other’s neck feathers to inhale the pungent tangerine perfume, which acts as an honest signal of physical condition and parasite resistance. At sea, they are formidable pursuit divers, using their short, stiff wings as underwater flippers to dive up to 40 meters deep, hunting massive swarms of pelagic krill along upwelling oceanic frontal zones.
Conservation and Human Impact
The Crested Auklet is classified as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List due to its immense total population exceeding several million individuals. Nonetheless, their dense colonial nesting habits make them acutely vulnerable to catastrophic oil spills along subarctic shipping corridors and predation by introduced mammalian predators, particularly rats and Arctic foxes, on breeding islands.
Interesting Factoid
The Crested Auklet smells so powerfully of fresh tangerines and citrus that sailors navigating foggy Alaskan waters often smell the seabird colonies long before they can see the islands.