Great auks (Pinguinus impennis) were large flightless birds that thrived on rocky islands in the North Atlantic for thousands of years. However, humans hunted them to extinction within just a few ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. The IUCN Red List, which assesses the extinction risk of ...

Tim Birkhead, a British ornithologist, introduced me to the extremely ancient and flightless sea bird, Auk, that made a living in the North Atlantic for millennia. Birkhead, who has written several ...

During summers of my college years, I was a counselor at Camp Keewaydin near Middlebury, Vt., where pranks were attributed to the “Great Auk.” For instance, some of us, under cover of dark, rolled a ...