Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Pintado Petrel (Daption capense) - 20&23Feb2022

Pintado Petrels, otherwise known as Cape Petrels, range all over the Southern Oceans and we had them in several places including while crossing the Drake Passage.

Here are some interesting factoids from Wiki:

The genus name Daption is an anagram of the Portuguese name "Pintado" which was given to the species by navigators because of its pied plumage. Pintado is Portuguese and Spanish for "painted". The specific epithet capense signifies the Cape of Good Hope, the locality where the type specimen was collected. The word petrel is derived from Saint Peter and the story of his walking on water. This is in reference to the petrel's habit of appearing to run on the water to take off. Historically, it was also sometimes known as "Cape pigeon", due to early sailors thinking it resembled a pigeon."




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