Evolution and Fossil Record
Seabirds, by virtue of living in a geologically depositional environment (that is, in the sea where sediments are readily laid down), are well represented in the fossil record. They are first known to occur in the Cretaceous Period, the earliest being the Hesperornithiformes, like Hesperornis regalis, a flightless loon-like seabird that could dive in a fashion similar to grebes and loons (using its feet to move underwater) but had a beak filled with sharp teeth.
While Hesperornis is not thought to have left descendants, the earliest modern seabirds also occurred in the Cretaceous, with a species called Tytthostonyx glauconiticus, which seems allied to the Procellariiformes and/or Pelecaniformes. In the Paleogene the seas were dominated by early Procellariidae, giant penguins and two extinct families, the Pelagornithidae and the Plotopteridae (a group of large seabirds that looked like the penguins). Modern genera began their wide radiation in the Miocene, although the genus Puffinus (which includes today's Manx Shearwater and Sooty Shearwater) might date back to the Oligocene. The highest diversity of seabirds apparently existed during the Late Miocene and the Pliocene. At the end of the latter, the oceanic food web had undergone a period of upheaval due to extinction of considerable numbers of marine species; subsequently, the spread of marine mammals seems to have prevented seabirds from reaching their erstwhile diversity.
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