An easy mistake to make

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What do you think this bird is? A penguin? One might be forgiven for thinking so, but it is actually a great auk - a stuffed specimen because there have not been any live ones around since the mid 19th century, when the species became extinct due in no small part to human activity. Just to confuse matters, the scientific name of the great auk was Pinguinus impennis, the first part of which does sound remarkably like "penguin". However, there was no relationship between great auks and penguins - for one thing, the former lived entirely in the North Atlantic and the latter belong to the Southern Hemisphere. It was the resemblance that caused the name penguin to be given to penguins. Early discoverers of penguins thought they were seeing great auks and so used the same name. Great auks were the last species of the Pinguinus genus, which derives from the Latin "pinguis", which means "fat". So all penguins are simply "fat birds" - which is surely a bit insulting!