Puffin de Bryan : les trois découvreurs nous répondent

Small black-and-white shearwaters of the genus Puffinus are distributed globally, and their phylogenetic relationships are complex and uncertain. In 1963 a small shearwater collected at Midway Atoll in the North Pacific Ocean was identified as a Little Shearwater (P. assimilis), but several physical features suggest closer alliance with Audubon’s Shearwater (P. lherminieri) and its relatives. Biometrics indicate that the taxon this specimen represents is smaller than any other known shearwater, and phylogenetic analyses indicate it is distinct, with a pair-wise sequence divergence of at least 3.8% from related taxa. Peter Pyle, Andreanna J. Welch and Robert C Fleischer proposed a new species based on the specimen: Bryan’s Shearwater (Puffinus bryani nom. nov.).
The description was published in the issue of June 2011 of The Condor Journal. The three authors answered our questions.