NATURAL HISTORY · CATALOGUE RECORD
Bryan's Shearwater
Puffinus bryani Pyle, Welch & R. C. Fleischer, 2011
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.
Open encyclopedia reference
Bryan's shearwater (Puffinus bryani) is a species of shearwater that may occur around the Hawaiian Islands. It is the smallest species of shearwater and is black and white with a bluish gray beak and blue tarsi. First collected in 1963 and thought to be a little shearwater (Puffinus assimilis) it was determined using DNA analysis to be distinct in 2011. It is rare and possibly threatened and there is little information on its breeding or non-breeding ranges. The species is named after Edwin Horace Bryan Jr. a former curator of the B. P. Bishop Museum at Honolulu.
On February 7, 2012, DNA tests on six specimens found in Ogasawara alive and dead between 1997 and 2011 determined that they were Bryan's shearwaters. It is assumed that Bryan's shearwaters still survive on some of the uninhabited Bonin Islands.
In 2015 a small breeding colony of Bryan's shearwaters was found on the island of Higashijima in Japan.
Wikipedia contributors, Bryan's shearwater; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T07:05:39.866038+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.
Identity & source status
- Scientific name
- Puffinus bryani Pyle, Welch & R. C. Fleischer, 2011
- Name authority
- Pyle, Welch & R. C. Fleischer, 2011
- Common name
- Bryan's 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 bryani Pyle, Welch & R. C. Fleischer, 2011
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 |
| Little ShearwaterPuffinus assimilis Gould, 1838 | 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 |
| 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.
- Pyle, Peter, Andreanna J. Welch, and Robert C. Fleischer. (2011). A new species of Shearwater (Puffinus) recorded from Midway Atoll, northwest Hawaiian Islands. The Condor, Vol. 113, No. 3. 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. A suitable sourced image remains to be added.
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:4QFXJ. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.