Urile

Urile is a genus of birds in the family Phalacrocoracidae, commonly known as North Pacific cormorants. It contains 3 extant and 1 recently extinct species, all of which are or were found in the North Pacific Ocean.

Urile
Pelagic cormorant, U. pelagicus
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Suliformes
Family:	Phalacrocoracidae
Genus:	Urile Bonaparte, 1856
Type species
Pelecanus urile Gmelin, JF, 1789
Species
Urile penicillatus Urile urile Urile pelagicus †Urile perspicillatus

Members of this genus were formerly classified within the genus Phalacrocorax. Based on the results of a molecular phylogenetic study published in 2014,^[1] the genus Phalacrocorax was split and these species were moved to the resurrected genus Urile that had been introduced in 1856 by the French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte with the red-faced cormorant as the type species.^[2][3][4] Urile is thought to have split from Phalacrocorax 8.9 - 10.3 million years ago.^[1] The genus contains four species, of which one is now extinct.^[4]

List of species

Genus Urile – Bonaparte, 1856 – four species

Common name	Scientific name and subspecies	Range	Size and ecology	IUCN status and estimated population
Brandt's cormorant	Urile penicillatus (Brandt, 1837)	Pacific Coast of North America; resident from southern British Columbia south to Baja California, nonbreeding range extends north to Gulf of Alaska and south to Sinaloa	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
Red-faced cormorant	Urile urile (Gremlin, JF, 1789)	coastlines of North Pacific Ocean of both Asia and North America, from Hokkaido east to the Gulf of Alaska	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
Pelagic cormorant	Urile pelagicus (Pallas, 1811) Two subspecies U. p. pelagicus Pallas, 1811 U. p. resplendens Audubon, 1838	coastlines of North Pacific Ocean of both Asia and North America, breeding range from eastern Russia east to western North America as far south as the Coronado Islands; wintering range extends as far south as Taiwan on the western end of range and central Baja California on the eastern end of range	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
Spectacled cormorant	†Urile perspicillatus (Pallas, 1811)	(formerly) Bering Island, Russia; potentially other islands in the Commander Islands, as well as the parts of the adjacent Kamchatka Peninsula. Now extinct.	Size: Habitat: Diet:	EX