A new diminutive species of shearwater of the genus Calonectris (Aves: Procellariidae) from the Middle Miocene Calvert Formation of Chesapeake Bay

Calonectris kurodai, new species, is described from the Middle Miocene Calvert Formation of Virginia and Maryland. This shearwater was much smaller than any living congeneric species and provides the earliest record for the genus Calonectris. A femur referred to Calonectris sp. is probably from later Miocene deposits of the Choptank Formation and was about the size of the smallest living species C. edwardsi.