Southern Fulmar - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

The species was first described in 1840 by the Scottish naturalist Andrew Smith based on a specimen collected at the Cape of Good Hope. It originally had the binomial name Procellaria glacialoides but was subsequently moved to the genus Fulmarus with its closest relative, the Northern Fulmar, F. glacialis. Molecular data suggests that the two species diverged during the Pleistocene epoch.