Mystery Of The Woggin

[lordmongrove]

What’s A Woggin? A Bird, a Word, and a Linguistic Mystery
Whalers wrote about woggins all the time. What in the world were they?
By Cara Giaimo
OCTOBER 26, 2016

On December 20, 1792, the whaling ship Asiawas making its way through the Desolation Islands, in the Indian Ocean, when the crew decided to stop for lunch. According to the log keeper, the meal was a great success: “At 1 PM Sent our Boat on Shore After Some refreshments,” he wrote. “She returned with A Plenty of Woggins we Cooked Some for Supper.”

Right about now, you may be feeling peckish. But you may also be wondering: What in the world is a woggin?

New species are discovered all the time. Unknown old species—extinct ones, found as fossils and then plugged into our historical understanding of the world—turn up a lot, too. But every once in a while, all we have to go on is a word.New or old, known or unknown, no one knew what a woggin was until Judith Lund, whaling historian, decided to find out.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/whats-a-woggin-a-bird-a-word-and-a-linguistic-mystery
CONTINUED HERE:
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/whats-a-woggin-a-bird-a-word-and-a-linguistic-mystery

WHAT WAS THE WOGGIN?

Edited by Yith.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

Hope the original Pen Gwyn can make a comeback:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...ntroduce-extinct-great-auk-to-british-shores/

 

[escargot]

How about something explaining why this might be interesting, instead of just links?

 

[Coastaljames]

How about something explaining why this might be interesting, instead of just links?

It's very interesting...but you do have to make just the tiniest of efforts...

 

[escargot]

I don't go to a link without knowing what it's about. If I post a link I always give a little information first.

 

[Yithian]

I have requested several times previously that an extract be included.

 

[Ermintruder]

I wonder, after reading the fascinating first article...(plot spoiler alert).... might woggins have been northern hemisphere penguins after all?

My point is, by definition, an already-extinct species is difficult to confirm/deny the existence of.

If (in the scenario I am thinking of) sailors had, in an undocumented and hungry fashion, already eaten all the putative northern-hemisphere 'woggins' (ie boreal penguins) then the rest of the 'woggins' (ie boreal great auks), how would this not then account for the continued existence to this day of the rest of the 'woggins' (ie antarctic penguins).

In both a biological and philological sense?

 

[Coastaljames]

I wonder, after reading the fascinating first article...(plot spoiler alert).... might woggins have been northern hemisphere penguins after all?

My point is, by definition, an already-extinct species is difficult to confirm/deny the existence of.

If (in the scenario I am thinking of) sailors had, in an undocumented and hungry fashion, already eaten all the putative northern-hemisphere 'woggins' (ie boreal penguins) then the rest of the 'woggins' (ie boreal great auks), how would this not then account for the continued existence to this day of the rest of the 'woggins' (ie antarctic penguins).

In both a biological and philological sense?

Interesting- good post.

 

[Swifty]

I thought Woggin was an Irish radio DJ ..

 

[Ermintruder]

Does what I say make sense, though? Might northern sailors in, say, the 1300s, not have eaten any extant arctic penguins? Followed by the auks?

Also another very-obvious (to me) correlation: In the arctic there are indigenous people, and no penuins (or auks).

In the antarctic there are no indigenous people, but plenty of penguins.

I have met Innuit, in my lifetime (I mean quite westernised car/house/gun Canadian examples of the amazing people that they are) who gave the unsubtle impression that they'd quite cheerfully eat me, let alone penguins and/or auks.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

I liked this story on so many levels!

Obviously solving the riddle of what the mysterious woggins/waggins were was what drew me in.

Then, on doing a little more digging, I found the somewhat Fortean article about de-extincting the great auk (bring it on, please!)

Finally, etymology of the penguin name was something I wasn't aware of, but turned out to be utterly fascinating.

Despite the resemblance, great auks were only distantly related to penguins. However, being Northern Hemisphere birds, living even around the British coast, the great auks were known to us long before penguins. One of the immediate distinguishing features of the great auk were the large white marks either side of the head on an otherwise dark bird. The Welsh for white head is pen gwyn and that name, presumably first used to describe the birds living along the Welsh coast ( or possibly further afield but encountered by Welsh whalers) obviously stuck. Now when explorers headed South and encountered what we now call penguins, the similarity to the "pen gwyns" was noticed and the name (with a slight change in spelling) jumped from the extinct to the extant.

 

[Ermintruder]

Then, on doing a little more digging, I found the somewhat Fortean article about de-extincting the great auk (bring it on, please!)

I'm reluctant. I don't mean in any Jurrasic Park way, I'm thinking more in the practical sense that multiple species will have uptaken their vacant niche (predator/prey, territories, migratory paths).

How do we have the right to try turning clocks back like this? How can we be so confidently deterministic regarding outcomes?

We had no collective right to eliminate them: we have no absolute entitlement to recreate them. Mammoths. Dodos. Henry VIII. Time marches on, the present is here and the past has gone (as a good thing or for bad)

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

"I don't mean in any Jurrasic Park way .... Henry VIII"

I'd pay to see an extant Tyrant Rex!

As for the poor old pen gwyn, 150 years is pretty trivial in evolutionary terms and I'm sure Britain's other sea-birds could shuffle up a bit and make room for a long-lost relative.

 

[oldrover]

Great article.

 

[Coastaljames]

Does what I say make sense, though?

Not often, no.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

Not often, no.

But it doesn't make sense in an extremely eloquent manner!

 

[oldrover]

By the way, for those who are wondering, woggins* apparently tasted lousy.

* I have now added that word to my dictionary, I will be using it again.

 

[David Plankton]

I wonder, after reading the fascinating first article...(plot spoiler alert).... might woggins have been northern hemisphere penguins after all?

Would Northern Hemisphere penguins be an example of parallel evolution? They aren't renowned for travelling great distances, after all.
Or isn't that the niche that the Great Auk was filling?

 

[oldrover]

Or isn't that the niche that the Great Auk was filling?

Yes, but filling it much better. Great Auks were fantastic creatures in the water but absolute crap on land. Their little woggin legs were so far back on their body, their center of balance was awful, and this what did for the poor little sods. They could only nest in locations they could walk to on the flat. They couldn't climb, fly, or even scramble, and they needed places free of ground predators, so their breeding colony locations were extremely restricted.

I think the main colonies were somewhere around the Grand Banks, with smaller colonies distributed across the North Atlantic. Once we found them they were knackered.

A good documentary on the subject can be seen on the Channel 4 player, in the 'Extinct' series.

Personally I feel that the loss of this species is a serious gap in our world. I genuinely wish that along with the thylacine, and Steller's sea cow, we'd just left be.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

I believe so. The pen gwyn (great auk) and penguin represent a classic example of convergent evolution, rather like icthyosaurs and dolphins.

 

[oldrover]

I hope you don't mind Lordmongrove but I think this is such a great find of yours I've shared it elsewhere.

 

[Ermintruder]

So were penguins and auks related at the same branch level as (say) bees and wasps? (Hymenoptera) Or alligators and crocodiles as crocodilia?

I reckon auks could be called pendhus (black heads, in Welsh...(which is close to cenndhus, in Gaelic)

http://www.projectbritain.com/calendar/June/auk.html

 

[David Plankton]

So were penguins and auks related at the same branch level as (say) bees and wasps? (Hymenoptera) Or alligators and crocodiles as crocodilia?

That's going to take some digging. And bringing insects into it is only going to make things more complicated.

I don't know, but very similar looking birds can be of very different lineage.
Take House Martins and Swallows compared to the Swift. The Swift is a very different kind of bird to the other two although it looks similar and has very similar behaviour.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apodiformes

 

[oldrover]

So were penguins and auks related at the same branch level as (say) bees and wasps? (Hymenoptera) Or alligators and crocodiles as crocodilia?

No, both come from ancient groups of birds, the penguins are Sphenisciformes, only penguins, and are first known from the early Paleocene. While Great Auks/woggins/pen gwyns are Charadiformes, an order first known from the mid Paleocene. The Great Auk's closest living relative is the razorbill. Earliest known auks as in the group that includes puffins, guillemots etc is about 35mya. Or something like all of that anyway.

They look similar because they both have the same countershading shared by many marine animals. And lived a similar lifestyle. Crucially though the Great Auk seems to have been more adapted to life in the water and paid the price. Not that it had to, or that it was inevitable, it was just our wanton destructiveness that wiped it out. See the C4 documentary.

Great Auk

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/...q0gSBkzcH_-jHFXstKOOPHi_e1tpOIk75CAYQiDp0.jpg

Razorbill

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/...qLNOm8r7BR2FcFZai5vfXoZ4j6L-WxVZDm_7eTY6EVxTb

Mere penguin

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/...snOKyQZNPjyS9wthPShA_GKTMP23sBRo7efsdUIOJDnhM

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

So were penguins and auks related at the same branch level as (say) bees and wasps? (Hymenoptera) Or alligators and crocodiles as crocodilia?

I reckon auks could be called pendhus (black heads, in Welsh...(which is close to cenndhus, in Gaelic)

http://www.projectbritain.com/calendar/June/auk.html

Or penn dhu in Cornish. I was brought up in a part of St Austell Cornwall called pondhu, which may have a similar etymology.

 

[oldrover]

It'd be 'penn du' in Welsh.

 

[kamalktk]

Birds on the brain, or woggins on the noggin?

 

[lordmongrove]

Or penn dhu in Cornish. I was brought up in a part of St Austell Cornwall called pondhu, which may have a similar etymology.

No its just slight convergence. Auks were called penguins before the birds we call penguins were discovered. Sorry iof that's as clear as the coal house on a foggy day.

 

[lordmongrove]

I hope you don't mind Lordmongrove but I think this is such a great find of yours I've shared it elsewhere.

Be my guest old mate.

 

[lordmongrove]

Penguins were once introduced to Norway. A farmers wife shot one after mistaking it for a troll!
http://sorpolen2011.npolar.no/en/did-you-know/2011-12-05-penguins-used-to-live-in-lofoten.html