Razorbills
Alca
The razorbill (Alca torda) is a colonial seabird that comes to land only to breed. This agile bird chooses one partner for life; females lay one egg per year. Razorbills nest along coastal cliffs in enclosed or slightly exposed crevices. The parents spend equal amounts of time incubating. Once the chick has hatched, the parents take turns foraging for their young and sometimes fly long distances before finding prey.
1 branches of this genus, most-observed first · about 1 known species
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Where it lives
Recorded sightings
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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
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In the old herbals & bestiaries
Introductio Generalis in Rem Herbariam
Augustus Quirinus Rivinus · 1690 · p.455
History of Animals, Book I: On Viviparous Quadrupeds
Conrad Gessner · 1554 · p.345
Garden of Health
1507 · p.16
On the Names of Plants
Hieronymus Bock (Tragus) · 1552 · p.503
History of Plants in Four Books
Valerius Cordus · 1561 · p.339
Ten Books of Exotic Things
Carolus Clusius · 1605 · p.346
Ten Books of Exotic Things
Carolus Clusius · 1605 · p.635
Thesaurus of Medical Things of New Spain, or History of Mexican Plants, Animals, and Minerals
Francisco Hernández; Nardo Antonio Recchi (ed.) · 1651 · p.258
Thesaurus of Medical Things of New Spain, or History of Mexican Plants, Animals, and Minerals
Francisco Hernández; Nardo Antonio Recchi (ed.) · 1651 · p.309
Treasury of Medical Matters of New Spain
Francisco Hernández · 1651 · p.277
Thesaurus of Medical Things of New Spain, or History of Mexican Plants, Animals, and Minerals
Francisco Hernández; Nardo Antonio Recchi (ed.) · 1651 · p.709
Treasury of Medical Matters of New Spain
Francisco Hernández · 1651 · p.721
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Alca in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 4500.