A family of diving seabirds found mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, including puffins, murres, and auklets, known for their strong swimmers and distinctive appearance.
From Old Norse 'álka,' origin unclear but possibly imitative. The word entered English from Scandinavian languages where these birds were commonly observed.
The great auk, now extinct, was hunted so intensively in the 1800s that the last pair was killed in 1844—it's one of the most famous extinctions caused by humans and reminds us why conservation matters.
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