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Volume 47, No. 2

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Longevity in the Rhinoceros Auklet Cerorhinca monocerata and a comparison with other species of Alcidae

Key words: banding, body mass, burrow nests, North Pacific, recapture, seabirds, survival

Abstract

The Rhinoceros Auklet Cerorhinca monocerata is an abundant and widely distributed North Pacific seabird. We describe noteworthy longevity records derived from banding operations (1984-1985 and 2008-2018) on several large breeding colonies in British Columbia, Canada. Of note was an individual banded as a nestling on the Lucy Islands in 1985 and recaptured as a breeding adult in 2016, 31 years later. Several other individuals banded in the mid 1980s survived into at least their late 20s. These longevity records for the Rhinoceros Auklet are close to the value predicted by the linear relationship between longevity and log body mass for the 15 species of Alcidae for which data are available.

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