An ‛aukward’ tale: a genetic approach to discover the whereabouts of the last Great Auks

Jessica Emma Thomas; Gary R. Carvalho; James Seymour Haile; Michael D. Martin; Jose Alfredo Samaniego Castruita; Jonas Niemann; Mikkel Holger Strander Sinding; Marcela Sandoval Velasco; Nicolas J. Rawlence; Errol Fuller; Jon Fjeldså; Michael Hofreiter; John R. Stewart; Tom Gilbert; Michael Knapp

doi:10.3390/genes8060164

An ‛aukward’ tale: a genetic approach to discover the whereabouts of the last Great Auks

Jessica Emma Thomas^*, Gary R. Carvalho, James Seymour Haile, Michael D. Martin, Jose Alfredo Samaniego Castruita, Jonas Niemann, Mikkel Holger Strander Sinding, Marcela Sandoval Velasco, Nicolas J. Rawlence, Errol Fuller, Jon Fjeldså, Michael Hofreiter, John R. Stewart, Tom Gilbert, Michael Knapp

^*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

One hundred and seventy-three years ago, the last two Great Auks, Pinguinus impennis, ever reliably seen were killed. Their internal organs can be found in the collections of the Natural History Museum of Denmark, but the location of their skins has remained a mystery. In 1999, Great Auk expert Errol Fuller proposed a list of five potential candidate skins in museums around the world. Here we take a palaeogenomic approach to test which—if any—of Fuller’s candidate skins likely belong to either of the two birds. Using mitochondrial genomes from the five candidate birds (housed in museums in Bremen, Brussels, Kiel, Los Angeles, and Oldenburg) and the organs of the last two known individuals, we partially solve the mystery that has been on Great Auk scholars’ minds for generations and make new suggestions as to the whereabouts of the still-missing skin from these two birds.

Original language	English
Article number	164
Journal	Genes
Volume	8
Issue number	6
Number of pages	12
ISSN	2073-4425
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3390/genes8060164
Publication status	Published - 15 Jun 2017

Keywords

Ancient DNA
Extinct birds
Mitochondrial genome
Museum specimens
Palaeogenomics

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Thomas_2017_An_aukward_taleFinal published version, 11.1 MBLicence: CC BY

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Thomas, J. E., Carvalho, G. R., Haile, J. S., Martin, M. D., Samaniego Castruita, J. A., Niemann, J., Sinding, M. H. S., Sandoval Velasco, M., Rawlence, N. J., Fuller, E., Fjeldså, J., Hofreiter, M., Stewart, J. R., Gilbert, T., & Knapp, M. (2017). An ‛aukward’ tale: a genetic approach to discover the whereabouts of the last Great Auks. Genes, 8(6), Article 164. https://doi.org/10.3390/genes8060164

Thomas, JE, Carvalho, GR, Haile, JS, Martin, MD, Samaniego Castruita, JA, Niemann, J , Sinding, MHS , Sandoval Velasco, M, Rawlence, NJ, Fuller, E, Fjeldså, J, Hofreiter, M, Stewart, JR, Gilbert, T & Knapp, M 2017, 'An ‛aukward’ tale: a genetic approach to discover the whereabouts of the last Great Auks', Genes, vol. 8, no. 6, 164. https://doi.org/10.3390/genes8060164

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title = "An ‛aukward{\textquoteright} tale: a genetic approach to discover the whereabouts of the last Great Auks",

abstract = "One hundred and seventy-three years ago, the last two Great Auks, Pinguinus impennis, ever reliably seen were killed. Their internal organs can be found in the collections of the Natural History Museum of Denmark, but the location of their skins has remained a mystery. In 1999, Great Auk expert Errol Fuller proposed a list of five potential candidate skins in museums around the world. Here we take a palaeogenomic approach to test which—if any—of Fuller{\textquoteright}s candidate skins likely belong to either of the two birds. Using mitochondrial genomes from the five candidate birds (housed in museums in Bremen, Brussels, Kiel, Los Angeles, and Oldenburg) and the organs of the last two known individuals, we partially solve the mystery that has been on Great Auk scholars{\textquoteright} minds for generations and make new suggestions as to the whereabouts of the still-missing skin from these two birds.",

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An ‛aukward’ tale: a genetic approach to discover the whereabouts of the last Great Auks

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