Auklet : Rhinoceros Auklet
The Rhinoceros Auklet is a sea bird also known with a name Cerorhinca monocerata. It is a type of seabird and even though the name is related to the puffins. This sea bird is the only species living of the genus Cerorhinca.
These birds looks like a puffins and so the common name of this type of bird is Rhinoceros Puffin. These sea birds are spread widely across the North Pacific. These sea birds feed on small fish. This bird nests in seabird colonies.
It has its name derived mainly because of the horn-like beak extension of a sea bird. In these birds the horn is present only in the breeding and adults birds, and also the detailed cover on the bill of the puffins is shed each year.
The Rhinoceros Auklet sea birds are also well known with names like Horn-billed Puffin, Rhino Auklet or Unicorn Puffin and it is medium sized auk and having a strong and large orange or brown colored bill.
The plumage is darker at the top and paler towards the lower side in the breeding adults of these sea birds. In this type both male as well as female have the white plumes just on top of the eyes and at the back of the bill. In this type of sea bird the male is slightly more in weight, nearly 10% more weighing than the female seabird.
The Rhinoceros Auklet sea bird is North Pacific auk and it breeds from California to the Aleutian Islands in North America in Alaska and also found in the North Korea and in Asia at Sakhalin Island.
The Rhinoceros Auklet build a nest by making a hole by digging in the soil or also make places in the natural caves or cavities of nearly one to five meter in depth. It also has a preference in nesting at sites on slight inclines.
In these sea bird also just a single egg is incubated by male as well as female parent sea bird and for the 45 days, then that baby sea bird is fed a bill full with fish every night for the next 50 days.
At sea level the Rhinoceros sea birds feed on fish and some krill, squid also taken along it. This sea bird nourish inshore throughout the breeding period during the mid-winter. These sea birds catch the prey by diving and for that they can dive up to 57 meters depth and for time of 148 seconds.
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