NATURAL HISTORY · CATALOGUE RECORD
Little Shearwater
Puffinus assimilis Gould, 1838
Source-backed taxonomic record
Accepted species in Catalogue of Life’s 11 September 2026 base release. This preserves the source classification and available supporting data; it is not a completed species monograph.
Puffinus elegans = Puffinus assimilis elegans
John Gerrard Keulemans · Public domain · Image sourceProvider-generated thumbnail requested at 800 pixels; no local editing Local WebP display rendition; resized without cropping.
Open encyclopedia reference
The little shearwater (Puffinus assimilis) is a small shearwater in the petrel family Procellariidae. Despite the generic name, it is unrelated to the puffins, which are auks, the only similarity being that they are both burrow-nesting seabirds.
Wikipedia contributors, Little shearwater; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T06:31:29.619147+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.
Identity & source status
- Scientific name
- Puffinus assimilis Gould, 1838
- Name authority
- Gould, 1838
- Common name
- Little Shearwater
- Rank
- species
- Accepted status
- accepted
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Class
- Aves
- Order
- Procellariiformes
- Family
- Procellariidae
- Genus
- Puffinus
- Extinction status
- Recorded extant
Classification family tree
Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.
- domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
- kingdomAnimalia
- phylumChordata
- subphylumVertebrata
- infraphylumGnathostomata
- parvphylumOsteichthyes
- megaclassTetrapoda
- classAves
- orderProcellariiformes
- familyProcellariidae Leach, 1820
- genusPuffinus Brisson, 1760
- speciesPuffinus assimilis Gould, 1838
Close classified relatives
These entries share the source’s genus, Puffinus. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.
| Species | Classification | Source status |
|---|---|---|
| Boyd's ShearwaterPuffinus boydi Mathews, 1912 | ProcellariidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Heinroth's ShearwaterPuffinus heinrothi Reichenow, 1919 | ProcellariidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Balearic ShearwaterPuffinus mauretanicus Lowe, 1921 | ProcellariidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Galapagos ShearwaterPuffinus subalaris Ridgway, 1897 | ProcellariidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Yelkouan ShearwaterPuffinus yelkouan (Acerbi, 1827) | ProcellariidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Tropical ShearwaterPuffinus bailloni (Bonaparte, 1857) | ProcellariidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Subantarctic ShearwaterPuffinus elegans Giglioli & Salvadori, 1869 | ProcellariidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| 'A'oPuffinus auricularis C. H. Townsend, 1890 | ProcellariidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Bannerman's ShearwaterPuffinus bannermani Mathews & Iredale, 1915 | ProcellariidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Barolo ShearwaterPuffinus baroli (Bonaparte, 1857) | ProcellariidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Bryan's ShearwaterPuffinus bryani Pyle, Welch & R. C. Fleischer, 2011 | ProcellariidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Fluttering ShearwaterPuffinus gavia (J. R. Forster, 1844) | ProcellariidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
Documented distribution
Source distribution statements, not a complete range map. A listed locality is not necessarily a place of origin.
Source literature & publication evidence
References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.
- Gould, & John. (1838). A Synopsis of the Birds of Australia, and the Adjacent Islands, Part 4. Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references
Origins, evidence & remaining research
Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.
Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record.
Dataset citation & attribution
This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11
Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.
Stable key: col:4QFXC. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.