Long before penguins charmed audiences with their Southern antics, a black-and-white bird held sway across the North Atlantic: the great auk, or geirfugl in Icelandic. Recognised today only as a museum curiosity and extinct symbol, its journey through history is intimately connected to Iceland’s shores and cultural memory.
A seabird shaped by icy waters
The great auk (Pinguinus impennis) was an unusual presence among the North Atlantic’s wildlife. Reaching up to 75 centimetres in height and weighing about 5 kilograms, it was the largest modern alcid and one of the few flightless birds of its era. These birds gathered in throngs on isolated Atlantic islands, venturing as far south as northern Spain during certain times of year, but some of their last and most important breeding grounds were found off Iceland’s coast.
Its form was adapted for an aquatic life rather than flight. Short wings, about 15 centimetres in length, proved powerless for taking to the sky but made it adept at swimming and hunting fish and crustaceans beneath the waves. On land, these birds appeared awkward, shuffling in dense colonies to lay and defend a single mottled egg upon bare rock, with both parents sharing in its care.
History, language and extinction
For centuries, the great auk played a significant role for coastal communities. Indigenous groups in North America included auk bones and beaks in symbolic burials, sometimes making elaborate cloaks from their skins. Europeans, too, came to value the bird, not just as food and bait, but increasingly for its feather down, leading to intensive hunting across its range by the 16th century.
In Iceland, the geirfugl’s final chapter was both swift and tragic. Despite early attempts to enact protective measures as populations dwindled, collectors and museums drove renewed interest. In June 1844, four men travelled to Eldey, west of the Reykjanes Peninsula, where they dispatched the last two known living birds and their egg. Rumours of later sightings persisted in Greenland and elsewhere, but none could be confirmed.
The language surrounding the great auk is as layered as its history. The Norse called it geirfugl, meaning “spearbird,” a term echoed in Icelandic. In other languages, names such as the Basque arponaz (“spearbill”) and Irish falcóg mhór (“big seabird”) reflected its characteristics or standing. The scientific term Pinguinus, rooted in Latin and various European tongues, gave rise to the modern English word “penguin.” When Southern Hemisphere explorers later encountered similar-looking birds, they borrowed the name, although true penguins are only distantly related to the great auk.
Today, of the roughly 80 stuffed great auks preserved worldwide, one is kept by Iceland’s Museum of Natural History. Acquired after a national fundraising effort in 1971, this single specimen now stands for an entire vanished species, and the powerful human forces that shaped its fate.
Sources
- Wikipedia
- Wikipedia (Icelandic) in Icelandic
