The Atlantic puffin is a striking and recognizable seabird of the North Atlantic, often called the “sea parrot” due to its colorful beak during breeding season. These birds spend the majority of their lives at sea, returning to coastal cliffs only to breed. Their sole reliance on the ocean for sustenance confirms their dietary classification: puffins are carnivores.
The Puffin’s Primary Diet
Puffins derive almost all of their nutrition from marine animal life, with fish making up well over 90% of their diet. They are accomplished divers, using their short, strong wings to “fly” through the water and their webbed feet for steering. A typical foraging dive takes them between 10 and 30 meters deep, though they can descend up to 60 meters in pursuit of prey.
The primary targets for these oceanic predators are small schooling fish, such as sand eels, capelin, herring, and sprats. They also consume invertebrates like crustaceans and small mollusks, especially when the preferred fish species are less abundant. A remarkable adaptation allows the puffin to maximize its hunting efficiency by carrying multiple fish simultaneously in its bill.
The ability to carry multiple fish is possible due to backward-pointing spines, or denticles, located on the palate and tongue, which secure the captured fish. The beak also features a flexible hinge, allowing the bird to open its mouth wider to catch additional prey without releasing the fish already held crosswise. While a puffin typically returns to its nest carrying around ten fish, some individuals have been observed transporting over sixty small fish in a single trip.
The diet of puffin chicks differs slightly from their parents, as the young require a specific meal for rapid growth. Chicks are provisioned almost exclusively with small, fatty, energy-rich fish like sand eels and small herring. Adults are notably selective about the size and shape of fish they deliver, as chicks cannot easily swallow wider-bodied species.
Defining Marine Carnivores
An organism is classified as a carnivore if its energy and nutrient requirements are met mainly or entirely by consuming animal tissue. Since puffins exclusively prey on fish, crustaceans, and other marine invertebrates, they fit this classification. This places them in the subcategory of piscivores, which describes any carnivore whose diet consists predominantly of fish.
Because puffins do not eat algae, seeds, or other plant life, their dependence on marine animal life makes them a hypercarnivore. This classification is reserved for animals whose diet is over 70% meat. Their specialized hunting mechanisms and reliance on the ocean’s bounty confirm their role as a dedicated marine carnivore.