Spectacled Cormorant

The Spectacled Cormorant was a species of cormorant once distrubuted on Bering Island. In 1741, German naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller discovered this bird while accompanying Vitus Bering on an expedition near the Kamchatka region. (During the same voyage, Steller also identified the Steller’s sea cow, which became extinct shortly thereafter due to overhunting. Bering himself died on this journey on the island, and the island was later named after him.) According to Steller’s records, the Spectacled Cormorant was common on the island at the time.

This bird measured around 100 cm in length, making it the largest known species of modern cormorant species, surpassing even the flightless cormorant, the largest living species today, which ranges from 89 to 100 cm. Steller described the Spectacled Cormorant as having white feathers around its eyes, like wearing spectacles, which gives it name. However, this feature is not clearly depicted in some illustration. The bird’s plumage was glossy black, except for two large symmetrical white patches near its legs on the lower sides of its body. In sunlight, its feathers had a greenish sheen. Its wings were small in proportion to its body, rendering it largely flightless. Instead, it is believed to have been an excellent diver and fisher, although no detailed accounts from naturalists confirm this.

The Spectacled Cormorant was traditionally hunted by Indigenous peoples for food, but its decline accelerated after 1741, when more seafarers passing through Bering Island began hunting it for meat and feathers. The last known population survived on Ariy Rock, a small islet about 8 km from Bering Island, but by around 1850, the species had vanished entirely.

In 2018, fossils of Spectacled Cormorants approximately 120,000 years ago to the Pleistocene were discovered in Japan, suggesting that the species once had a much wider historical range.