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Ringed storm petrel
Conservation status
	; Near Threatened (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Procellariiformes
Family:	Hydrobatidae
Genus:	Hydrobates
Species:	H. hornbyi
Binomial name
	Hydrobates hornbyi; (Gray, GR, 1854)
Synonyms
	Oceanodroma hornbyi

The ringed storm petrel (Hydrobates hornbyi), also known as Hornby's storm petrel, is a seabird that ranges in the Humboldt Current off the coasts of South America. The species is a very distinctive member of the storm petrel family, with a dark cap, white face and underparts, forked tail and a black band across the chest. It is relatively common in the seas off Peru, Chile and Ecuador. The species is named after Admiral Sir Phipps Hornby.

Taxonomy

The ringed storm petrel was formally described in 1854 by the English zoologist George Gray and given the binomial name Thalassidroma hornbyi. He chose the specific epithet to honour Admiral Sir Phipps Hornby who had obtained the specimen.^[2]^[3] The ringed storm petrel was formerly placed in the genus Oceanodroma but is now placed in the genus Hydrobates, the only genus in the Northern storm petrel family Hydrobatidae.^[4]

Breeding

Little is known about the breeding biology of the ringed storm petrel. The first colony of this seabird ever found was discovered in April 2017 by Chilean ornithologists from the Red de Observadores de Aves y Vida Silvestre de Chile (ROC). Breeding burrows of this seabirds were discovered in the Atacama Desert (northern Chile), over 70 km away from the sea, near the city of Diego de Almagro, not the habitat where one would expect to find this seabird. More breeding sites are expected to be found in Chile and Peru: every year fledglings are found stranded on the city streets of Peru, distracted by the city lights.

The birds are thought to breed between March and July, as this is when fledglings are regularly seen at sea around Lima, Peru, and Antofagasta, Chile. There have also been reports of mummified fledglings and adults found in crevices in the Atacama Desert 50 km from the sea, and even reports of one fledgling being seen 150 km from the sea, and one unproven report of a bird flying into a nest in the town of Caraz in Peru, 100 km from the sea. The breed's first documented nest was found by a group of volunteer naturalists in the Atacama Desert in April 2017.^[5]

Status and conservation

It is difficult to know how threatened, if at all, the ringed storm petrel is. At sea, estimates put the population in the thousands or tens of thousands. Recently a vagrant ringed storm petrel was seen off the coast of California by a team from the NOAA.

References

^ BirdLife International (2019). "Hydrobates hornbyi". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2019: e.T22698567A156372027. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2019-3.RLTS.T22698567A156372027.en. Retrieved 12 November 2021.
^ Gray, George Robert (1853). "On a new species of Thalassidroma". Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (Part 21): 62. The title page is dated 1853 but the article was not published until the following year. See: Dickinson, Edward C. (2005). "The Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1859–1900: an exploration of breaks between calendar years of publication". Journal of Zoology. 266 (4): 427–430. doi:10.1017/S0952836905007077.
^ Mayr, Ernst; Cottrell, G. William, eds. (1979). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. p. 117.
^ Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (July 2023). "Petrels, albatrosses". IOC World Bird List Version 13.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 10 December 2023.
^ Gilman, Sarah (July 20, 2018). "The Secret Desert Home of a Tiny, Lonely Seabird". The Atlantic. Retrieved July 20, 2018.

Brooke, M. (2004). Albatrosses and Petrels Across the World: Procellariidae. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK ISBN 0-19-850125-0
Birdwatching (Magazine), October 2017, Vol. 31, No. 5, page 8