Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

North­ern ful­mars are found through­out the north­ern At­lantic and Arc­tic oceans in the north­ern hemi­sphere. They occur as far south as Cape Cod, Mass­a­chu­setts in the west­ern At­lantic, the British Isles in the east­ern At­lantic, Japan in the west­ern Pa­cific and Cal­i­for­nia in the east­ern Pa­cific. There are 3 rec­og­nized sub­species: F. g. glacialis in the north­ern­most At­lantic, F. g. audubonii is found in the lower Arc­tic of the north At­lantic, and F. g. rodger­sii is found in the north Pa­cific. (del Hoyo, et al., 1992; Huettmann and Di­a­mond, 2000)

North­ern ful­mars range widely across the At­lantic, with in­di­vid­u­als reg­u­larly trav­el­ing be­tween North Amer­ica and Britain, in­clud­ing im­ma­ture in­di­vid­u­als. In the west­ern At­lantic, most north­ern ful­mars in 11 large colonies above 65 de­grees North lat­i­tude in east­ern Canada. Ad­di­tional breed­ing colonies are found in Green­land, New­found­land, and Labrador. Con­cen­tra­tions of north­ern ful­mars occur around New­found­land in early spring and some ev­i­dence sug­gests a gen­eral north­wards move­ment in pop­u­la­tions be­tween May and July. Fledg­lings dis­perse south­wards rapidly from breed­ing colonies in Sep­tem­ber and Oc­to­ber. In win­ter the ma­jor­ity of north­ern ful­mars occur in off­shore wa­ters and are rarely ob­served. (Huettmann and Di­a­mond, 2000)

• Biogeographic Regions
• arctic ocean
  • native
• atlantic ocean
  • native
• pacific ocean
  • native

• Other Geographic Terms
• holarctic

Habi­tat

North­ern ful­mars are found in ocean wa­ters over con­ti­nen­tal shelves. They are found from the pack ice of Arc­tic wa­ters to tem­per­ate wa­ters. They seem to pre­fer shelf break habi­tats (the area where the con­ti­nen­tal shelf be­gins to de­scend to­wards the sea floor) or areas over the con­ti­nen­tal slope. They are rarely seen more than 100 km from shore. They breed on rocky cliffs and is­lands up to 1 km in­land, but typ­i­cally close to the water or coastal. They have oc­ca­sion­ally been re­ported nest­ing on human struc­tures, like houses in coastal areas. (del Hoyo, et al., 1992; Hatch and Net­tle­ship, 1998)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate
• polar
• saltwater or marine

• Aquatic Biomes
• coastal

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

There are 4 color morphs of north­ern ful­mars: very dark, dark, light, and very light. Color morphs seem to dif­fer in their dis­tri­b­u­tion dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son and in the tim­ing of their molt. The 3 rec­og­nized sub­species are dis­tin­guished by dif­fer­ences in bill length and thick­ness and the pro­por­tion of the dif­fer­ent color morphs, al­though the sub­species do have in­di­vid­u­als of mul­ti­ple color morphs gen­er­ally. In­di­vid­u­als of dif­fer­ent color morphs seem to mate in­dis­crim­i­nantly, al­though breed­ing colonies tend to be made up mainly of a sin­gle color morph. Im­ma­ture in­di­vid­u­als can­not be dis­tin­guished from adults. Most molt­ing oc­curs in July. Molt­ing seems to make some pop­u­la­tions un­able to fly, but not oth­ers. Males are slightly larger, on av­er­age 835 g whereas fe­males av­er­age 700 g (range of masses is 450 to 1000 g). The sexes are sim­i­lar in over­all ap­pear­ance. North­ern ful­mars are from 45 to 50 cm long with wingspans of 102 to 112 cm. (del Hoyo, et al., 1992; Hatch and Net­tle­ship, 1998; Huettmann and Di­a­mond, 2000)

North­ern ful­mars have thick, yel­low to gray bills with darker areas over the "tubes." Their legs and feet are flesh-col­ored to gray. Dark color morphs are more com­mon in the south­ern por­tions of their range in the At­lantic and the north­ern por­tions of their range in the Pa­cific. Light color morphs are more com­mon in the north­ern por­tion of the range in the Pa­cific. At­lantic pop­u­la­tions tend to have ro­bust bills and are al­most ex­clu­sively light color morphs, whereas Pa­cific pop­u­la­tions have bills that are more slen­der and ex­hibit the full range of color vari­a­tion. Light morphs are uni­formly pale, with head, neck, and ven­tral sur­faces white and with their backs and wings being gray. Dark morphs are uni­formly dark gray. Nearly all in­di­vid­u­als of any color morph have a light to white patch on the dor­sal sur­face of their wings formed by the ex­posed lighter por­tion of their pri­maries, this is only lack­ing in the dark­est of in­di­vid­u­als. In­di­vid­u­als can vary be­tween the very dark ("dou­ble dark") and light ("dou­ble light") morphs de­scribed above. Vari­a­tion is more of less con­tin­u­ous, but is di­vided into 4 morph cat­e­gories for con­ve­nience. (Hatch and Net­tle­ship, 1998)

North­ern ful­mars can be con­fused with pink-footed shear­wa­ters (Puffi­nus cre­ato­pus) or flesh-footed shear­wa­ters (Puffi­nus carneipes), but can be dis­tin­guished by their thick, rounded heads and stubby bills. (Hatch and Net­tle­ship, 1998)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• homoiothermic
• bilateral symmetry
• polymorphic

• Sexual Dimorphism
• male larger

• Range mass

  450 to 1000 g

  15.86 to 35.24 oz

• Average mass

  700 to 835 g

  oz

• Range length

  45 to 50 cm

  17.72 to 19.69 in

• Range wingspan

  102 to 112 cm

  40.16 to 44.09 in

Re­pro­duc­tion

North­ern ful­mars are monog­a­mous and re­join their mates each year at the same nest site for breed­ing. If an in­di­vid­ual's mate dies, they will mate with a young, in­ex­pe­ri­enced mate fol­low­ing year, but at the same nest site. Males and fe­males as­so­ci­ate at the nest­ing colony for a few weeks be­fore they lay an egg. They cop­u­late fre­quently, then both de­part to for­age dur­ing the pre-lay­ing phase. (Hatch and Net­tle­ship, 1998)

• Mating System
• monogamous

Dur­ing the pre-lay­ing pe­riod, fe­males store sperm in their re­pro­duc­tive tract and begin the process of yolk for­ma­tion, which takes about 23 days. After yolk for­ma­tion, fe­males ovu­late, the egg is fer­til­ized, and the fe­male re­turns to the colony and lays her egg within a few hours of ar­rival. Egg-lay­ing oc­curs about 3 weeks after breed­ing. (Hatch and Net­tle­ship, 1998)

North­ern ful­mars begin to breed in April and lay their eggs in late May to early June in large colonies on ledges and among rocks. They may also nest in areas with more soil and veg­e­ta­tion than other seabirds and will even nest on build­ings and walls. Nests are fairly sim­ple scrapes, some­times lined with bits of veg­e­ta­tion. From 80 to 99% of nests are re-used by at least 1 mem­ber of the orig­i­nal pair each year. Fe­males lay a sin­gle, white egg and in­cu­ba­tion lasts for 47 to 53 days. The process of hatch­ing takes from 4 to 5 days. Young fledge at 49 to 58 days in early Sep­tem­ber, with the last young north­ern ful­mars leav­ing their natal sites by early Oc­to­ber. Sex­ual ma­tu­rity is not reached until 5 to 20 years old (av­er­age 8 years in males, 12 years in fe­males). (del Hoyo, et al., 1992; Hatch and Net­tle­ship, 1998)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• oviparous
• sperm-storing

• Breeding interval

  Northern fulmars breed once yearly.

• Breeding season

  Breeding occurs in the late spring and early summer, beginning in May.

• Range eggs per season

  1 to 1

• Average eggs per season

  1

  AnAge

• Range time to hatching

  47 to 53 days

• Range fledging age

  49 to 58 days

• Average fledging age

  53 days

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  5 to 20 years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  12 years

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  5 to 20 years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  8 years

Both par­ents in­cu­bate the eggs, stay­ing on the nest for from 1 to 11 (av­er­age 4.6) days until re­lieved by the other par­ent. Males often take par­tic­u­larly long in­cu­ba­tion shifts at the be­gin­ning of in­cu­ba­tion, pre­sum­ably to allow the fe­male to re­cover from lay­ing the egg. Young hatch with a light cov­er­ing of down and are closely tended by par­ents for 10 to 16 days after hatch­ing, after which par­ents pri­mar­ily visit the nest to feed their young. They are able to ther­moreg­u­late at 3 to 6 days old. Par­ents feed their young by re­gur­gi­ta­tion in re­sponse to the chick's food beg­ging call. Young fledge at 49 to 58 (av­er­age 53) days old, about 4 to 5 days after the par­ents have stopped feed­ing them. Young fledge at 115 to 119% of adult body mass. (del Hoyo, et al., 1992; Hatch and Net­tle­ship, 1998)

• Parental Investment
• altricial
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • male
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
    • female

Lifes­pan/Longevity

North­ern ful­mars have ex­cep­tion­ally long lifes­pans. Av­er­age adult life ex­pectancy is es­ti­mated at 31.8 years. Birds have been re­ported breed­ing at over 50 years old. An­nual sur­vival rates are ap­prox­i­mately 0.988 for adults. Most mor­tal­ity is dur­ing the egg and early hatch­ling phase. (del Hoyo, et al., 1992; Hatch and Net­tle­ship, 1998)

• Typical lifespan
  Status: wild

  50 (high) years

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  31.8 years

Be­hav­ior

North­ern ful­mars for­age both dur­ing the day and at night, al­though much for­ag­ing may occur at night. They are found in colo­nial nest­ing colonies dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son. North­ern­most, Arc­tic pop­u­la­tions are mi­gra­tory, mov­ing south­wards as the polar ice ex­pands in win­ter. They are ab­sent from their north­ern ranges from No­vem­ber to Feb­ru­ary, in gen­eral. All other pop­u­la­tions are more no­madic or dis­per­sive, rang­ing widely in search of good for­ag­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties out­side of the breed­ing sea­son and dis­pers­ing from breed­ing colonies to pelagic for­ag­ing areas at the end of the sea­son. Young north­ern ful­mars range more widely than adults and often cross oceans. Dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son in­di­vid­u­als spend about 39% of their time at the colony and 61% of their time for­ag­ing. They spend more time for­ag­ing dur­ing the pre-lay­ing pe­riod. (del Hoyo, et al., 1992; Hatch and Net­tle­ship, 1998)

North­ern ful­mars fly in a man­ner typ­i­cal of the fam­ily (Pro­cel­lari­idae), with stuff wing beats and glid­ing. They tend to fly close to the water. They also soar and use up­wellings of air to sup­port aer­ial ma­neu­vers near cliff colonies. Av­er­age air speed in flight has been cal­cu­lated at 13 m/s (47 km/h). North­ern ful­mars are buoy­ant on the water and spend a fair amount of time preen­ing. They bathe with en­thu­si­asm, some­times even be­com­ing com­pletely soaked and un­able to fly for some time after bathing. (Hatch and Net­tle­ship, 1998)

• Key Behaviors
• flies
• natatorial
• diurnal
• nocturnal
• motile
• nomadic
• migratory
• social
• colonial

• Average territory size

  1 m^2

Home Range

Home range sizes for north­ern ful­mars are not re­ported. They de­fend small nest­ing areas (about 1 m around the nest) at breed­ing colonies and will fight with other birds, al­though rarely. They will also use oil-spit­ting to de­fend their nest­ing site. Mean dis­tance to neigh­bor­ing nests av­er­aged 1.6 m in one study. (Hatch and Net­tle­ship, 1998)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

North­ern ful­mars are one of the few species of birds with a well-de­vel­oped sense of smell. They may use ol­fac­tion to de­tect and find prey and can be at­tracted to areas by fish oil smells. Sim­i­lar to other pe­trels and shear­wa­ters, they emit a strong, musky odor. In­di­vid­u­als emit this odor when han­dled and colonies and flocks are eas­ily de­tected by their smell. Birds some­times en­gage in al­lo­preen­ing upon re­turn­ing to breed­ing colonies. (Hatch and Net­tle­ship, 1998)

North­ern ful­mar vo­cal­iza­tions have been de­scribed as "cack­ling" or "bray­ing" at var­i­ous speeds. These vo­cal­iza­tions are used dur­ing courtship, at ap­proaches to nest­ing colonies, and in ag­gres­sion against in­trud­ers. They make other calls as well, de­scribed as grunts, mew­ing, and spit­ting, which warns a threat that these birds are about to spit stom­ach oil at them, a de­fen­sive mech­a­nism. Hatch­lings use a food-beg­ging call that stim­u­lates par­ents to re­gur­gi­tate. (Hatch and Net­tle­ship, 1998)

They also use a va­ri­ety of vi­sual dis­plays in ag­gres­sive en­coun­ters, in­clud­ing rais­ing their wings, rush­ing at other birds, and push­ing their breasts against the other bird. They also use their spit­ting call and oil spit­ting in ag­gres­sive en­coun­ters. (Hatch and Net­tle­ship, 1998)

• Communication Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

Food Habits

North­ern ful­mars eat fish, squid, and large zoo­plank­ton such as am­phipods (Thysa­noessa, Hy­pe­ria, Gam­marus, and Themisto species). They are op­por­tunis­tic feed­ers and also take dis­carded fish and car­rion, such as whale, wal­rus, and seal blub­ber. They eat a wide va­ri­ety of prey, but seem to pre­fer fish with high fat con­tent. They drink sea­wa­ter. They cap­ture prey mainly at the sur­face, but will oc­ca­sion­ally dive as well. North­ern ful­mars often ac­com­pany fish­ing fleets, form­ing large ag­gre­ga­tions to take ad­van­tage of fish waste. They are one of the few bird species with a well-de­vel­oped sense of smell and are thought to use ol­fac­tion to de­tect prey. They tend to for­age at ma­rine up­wellings that cause tem­po­rary con­cen­tra­tions of large zoo­plank­ton, in­clud­ing areas near ice sheets or up­welling as­so­ci­ated with feed­ing gray whales (Es­chric­tius ro­bus­tus) or trawl­ing op­er­a­tions. North­ern ful­mars travel widely in search of food. Dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son in­di­vid­ual leave the colony on for­ag­ing trips of 4 to 5 days that may take them up to 460 km from the colony, al­though most for­ag­ing is within 100 km of the colony. (del Hoyo, et al., 1992; Hatch and Net­tle­ship, 1998)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • piscivore
  • eats non-insect arthropods
  • molluscivore
  • scavenger

• Animal Foods
• fish
• carrion
• mollusks
• aquatic crustaceans
• cnidarians
• zooplankton

Pre­da­tion

North­ern ful­mars are preyed on by red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and Arc­tic foxes (Vulpes lago­pus) at breed­ing colonies. Other in­tro­duced preda­tors in­clude ground squir­rels (Sper­mophilus) and rats (Rat­tus norvegi­cus). North­ern ful­mars are not sus­cep­ti­ble to these ter­res­trial preda­tors, ex­cept at breed­ing colonies. They will spit a foul smelling oil at preda­tors when threat­ened. (del Hoyo, et al., 1992; Hatch and Net­tle­ship, 1998)

• Known Predators

  • red foxes (Vulpes vulpes)
  • Arctic foxes (Vulpes lagopus)
  • ground squirrels (Spermophilus)
  • rats (Rattus norvegicus)

Ecosys­tem Roles

North­ern ful­mars are im­por­tant preda­tors and scav­engers in arc­tic and tem­per­ate pelagic wa­ters. They occur in large breed­ing colonies with other cliff-nest­ing seabirds, in­clud­ing mur­res (Uria), kit­ti­wakes (Rissa), and cor­morants (Pha­lacro­co­rax). They may use areas of breed­ing is­lands with more veg­e­ta­tion and soil ac­cu­mu­la­tion than these other species. They feed on large zoo­plank­ton brought to the sur­face by feed­ing gray whales (Es­chric­tius ro­bus­tus) and are often found in close as­so­ci­a­tion with black-legged kit­ti­wakes (Rissa tri­dactyla) in arc­tic wa­ters. (Hatch and Net­tle­ship, 1998)

North­ern ful­mars are sus­cep­ti­ble to var­i­ous dis­eases, in­clud­ing viral or­nitho­sis, which can be trans­mit­ted to hu­mans, and shell­fish paral­y­sis. Ec­topar­a­sites re­ported are chew­ing lice (Pro­cel­la­r­iphaga bre­v­i­fim­bi­ata, Sae­mu­ndsso­nia oc­ci­den­talis, and Per­ineus ni­grolim­batus), en­dopar­a­sites re­ported are ne­ma­todes (Ste­gopho­rus stel­lae­po­laris). (Hatch and Net­tle­ship, 1998)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

North­ern ful­mars have been his­tor­i­cally col­lected for food at nest­ing colonies. (Hatch and Net­tle­ship, 1998)

• Positive Impacts
• food

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

There are no ad­verse ef­fects of north­ern ful­mars on hu­mans.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

North­ern ful­mars have a large range and large pop­u­la­tion sizes, they are con­sid­ered "least con­cern" by the IUCN. North­ern ful­mar pop­u­la­tions have in­creased dra­mat­i­cally in the north­ern At­lantic and ex­panded their range in the last 2 cen­turies, pos­si­bly as a re­sult of greater food avail­abil­ity from fish dis­cards from com­mer­cial fish­ing op­er­a­tions. They were once heav­ily ex­ploited at colonies for food, but are not gen­er­ally taken for food cur­rently. They may be threat­ened by coastal pol­lu­tion near breed­ing colonies and likely suf­fer mor­tal­ity as­so­ci­ated with en­tan­gle­ment in fish­ing gear. (del Hoyo, et al., 1992; Hatch and Net­tle­ship, 1998)

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• US Migratory Bird Act

  Protected

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

Other Com­ments

Ful­marus glacialis may be most closely re­lated to Antarc­tic ful­mars (Ful­marus glacialoides). (Hatch and Net­tle­ship, 1998)

Con­trib­u­tors

Tanya Dewey (au­thor), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web.

Ref­er­ences

Hatch, S., D. Net­tle­ship. 1998. North­ern ful­mar (Ful­marus glacialis). The Birds of North Amer­ica On­line, 361: 1-20. Ac­cessed July 13, 2009 at http://​bna.​birds.​cornell.​edu.​proxy.​lib.​umich.​edu/​bna/​species/​361.

Huettmann, F., A. Di­a­mond. 2000. Seabird mi­gra­tion in the Cana­dian north­west At­lantic Ocean: moult­ing lo­ca­tions and move­ment pat­terns of im­ma­ture birds. Cana­dian Jour­nal of Zo­ol­ogy, 78: 624-627.

del Hoyo, J., A. El­liott, J. Sar­gatal. 1992. Hand­book of the Birds of the World, Vol­ume I. Barcelona: Lynx Edi­cions.