Puffin fun facts

Hi readers! Today's post is all about puffins.

There are three breeds of puffins: the Atlantic puffin (also called the common puffin), the tufted puffin, and the horned puffin. The Atlantic puffin is the only puffin native to--guess where--the Atlantic Ocean. The other two are found in the northeast pacific. 

Three Atlantic puffins. Image from Wikipedia

A tufted puffin. Image from Wikipedia again

Anyway, that's one puffin fun fact. Here are a few more! (Please note, these are Atlantic puffin facts. No site appeared to have facts about horned/tufted puffins.)

• Baby puffins are called pufflings (awwwwwww!).
• An adult puffin is about ten inches tall (twenty-five centimeters) and weighs seventeen-point-five ounces, or four-hundred-and-ninety-six grams.
• In 1901, only one pair of puffins remained on Matinicus Rock as a result of overhunting; today, there are over five hundred.
• In the wild, Atlantic puffins live to be twenty to twenty-five years old.

A horned puffin. Guess where the image is from? Wikipedia!

• Male and female puffins are nearly identical.
• Puffins start to pair up at about five years old, and bond by "billing" (rubbing their beaks together). They often stay together for life and return to the same burrow year after year.

All facts from Puffling Patrol, by Ted and Betsy Lewin. Except for the Matinicus rock one. That was from a video about how you could help save the puffins. (It included some info about the cute birds.) 

Also, check out this webpage for some hilarious puffin stuff!--Taryn

P.S. May the 4th be with you! =)