The hunt for the last great auks: ancient DNA resolves a 180-year-old mystery

Abstract

Over 180years ago, the last reliably observed pair of great auks (Pinguinus impennis) were killed on a small island off the coast of Iceland. Their skins and various internal organs were subsequently preserved. While the organs are currently held in the collections of the Natural History Museum of Denmark, what happened to their skins became an ornithological mystery. In 2017, this mystery was partially resolved using ancient DNA to find a match between the organs of the male and a skin specimen held in the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), Brussels. However, the location of the female specimen remained unidentified. It was hypothesized that the skin of the female could be in Cincinnati, due to a shared history with one of the candidate specimens previously tested. Here we test this hypothesis to see if the specimen held in the Museum of Natural History and Science, Cincinnati, is that of the last female great auk. Our analysis reveals that this skin specimen is a match to the organs, and therefore this natural history mystery has finally been solved.