Wikipedia
Brachyramphus is a small genus of seabirds from the North Pacific. Brachyramphus is from Ancient Greek brakhus, "short", and rhamphos, "bill". The species are named as "murrelets"; this is a diminutive of "murre", a word of uncertain origins, but which may imitate the call of the common guillemot.
The genus contains three species:
- Marbled murrelet, '' Brachyramphus marmoratus''
- Long-billed murrelet Brachyramphus perdix
- Kittlitz's murrelet, '' Brachyramphus brevirostris''
These are unusual members of the auk family, often nesting far inland in forests or on mountain tops. The long-billed murrelet was considered conspecific with the marbled murrelet until 1998, when Friesen et al. showed that the mtDNA variation was greater between these two forms than between marbled and Kittlitz's murrelets.
These species breed in the subarctic North Pacific. They tend to remain coastal in winter, either staying near the breeding grounds, or, in the case of long-billed, migrating to the coast of Japan.
Two prehistoric species have been described from Late Pliocene fossils, found in the San Diego Formation of the southwestern USA: Brachyramphus dunkeli and Brachyramphus pliocenum