Puffin

Puffin being peer-pressured into jumping off a cliff.

The Puffin (Fratercula Arctica) is an flightless seabird developed in 1962 as a Northern Alternative to the Penguin by the Northern Hemisphere Supremacist group, 'SHIITO' (Southern Hemisphere Is Inferior To Ours), whose headquarters were based in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire (now relocated to the World Puffin Heritage Site of St Kilda, offshore Scotland).

A Northern Sucess

Its conception came as a Northern response to Southern claims that the South had the stupidest looking animals and wildlife in the north was just plain boring. Puffins were regarded by Northern Hemispere Supremacists as a great success, occupying the same ecological niche as the Penguin, but looking every bit as stupid as popular Southern animal species such as the Platypus and the kangaroo.

Disaster of '74

Disaster fatefully struck in 1974 when an unusually hot summer caused scores of Puffins to dig burrows into the soft clifftops of the Atlantic Shores in search of cooler conditions. They haven't been seen since. Rumours that they dug all the way down to the Southern Hemisphere, where their garish beaks and camp walks were more acceptable have been disregarded as false in discerning ornithological circles.

Puffin Trivia

This is a puffin

This is not...

• Puffins fought a brief but bloody war against penguins in 1838 in response to the penguin blockade of krill shipments to the artic. The penguins surrendered after two weeks of aerial bombardment from their flying enemies. Many penguins died including Dave’s grandad.
• The Puffin actually weighed more than fourteen tons, which is why it could not fly.
• Most of its weight was concentrated in the beak, which was made of lead and silver plating.
• A heated war of words between Geologists and 'SHIITO' Ornithologists broke out in 1969, over the Puffin. The Geologists maintained that the mass of all the worlds puffins was more than the mass of the planet itself, and that official surveys must have been overestimating the size of puffin populations. The dispute was never resolved.
• The space vehicle that landed Aldrin and Armstrong on the Moon was actually called 'The Puffin.'
• A range of children's books called 'Puffin Books' provided scores of school children in the 1970s and 1980s with nesting material for Hamsters and Gerbils.
• A pub called the Puff Inn stands in Mansfield marketplace and on the Scottish island of St Kilda but nobody goes there.
• Puffins were once hand colored "tickle-me-pink" by employees of the Crayola corporation for an ad that never aired national television. Pink puffins are since extinct and the colorers were never found. PETA threw a hissy-fit.
• Puffins are arch-enemies of the Death Walrus
• Puffins have been known to wear blue jeans, which unfortuately often leads to puffin muffin top syndrome. This fact inspired the poem 'There once was a puffin'. An excerpt of this poem is found below:

Oh, there once was a Puffin

Just the shape of a muffin (top),

And he lived on an island

In the bright blue sea!

He ate little fishes

Which were most delicious

See Also

• Giant Australian Penguin