Japanese murrelet

Species of bird
Speciesbox
| image = Synthliboramphus wumizusume Japan 8. jpg
| image caption =
| status = VU
| status system = IUCN3.1
| status ref =
| genus = Synthliboramphus
| species = wumizusume
| authority = (Temminck, 1836)
| synonyms = Uria wumizusume (protonym) With a small and declining population, estimated as of 2017 to total 2,500–10,000 individuals, it is the rarest alcid, and the most at risk of extinction.

The Japanese murrelet is a monotypic species first described by Coenraad Temminck, as Uria wumizusume, in the text accompanying an 1836 livraison in the ongoing series Nouveau recueil de planches coloriées d'oiseaux. The following year, Johann Friedrich von Brandt erected the genus Brachyramphus and subgenus Synthliboramphus, transferring to it the Japanese murrelet, to which he gave the new specific name temminckii. Synthliboramphus has since been raised to generic rank, the specific name wumizusume having priority in accordance with Article 23 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. In its native Japan, the Japanese murrelet is known as the kanmuri umisuzume or "crested sea sparrow" (冠海雀), umisuzume being the vernacular name for the ancient murrelet (Synthliboramphus antiquus), from which it may be distinguished by its black crest. The s and z in the Japanese name were reversed by Temminck in the scientific name.

The Japanese murrelet is a smallish seabird in length, with a wingspan of , and weighing some followed by the Izu Islands, and other small islands such as in Mie Prefecture, and Kōshima (幸島) in Kōchi Prefecture; and a pair with two chicks has been collected off the south coast of Korea, across the Tsushima Strait. direct disturbance and the attraction of scavengers to waste left by recreational fishing, predation by rats (Rattus spp. ), feral cats (Felis catus), large billed crows (Corvus macrorhynchos), and legally protected in Japan, having been designated in 1975 a Natural Monument under the 1950 Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties. In 2009, the Japanese murrelet was adopted as a symbol of marine conservation by the Wild Bird Society of Japan. with a visiting population of less than 1% of the species, it is included on the 2016 Red List of Birds of Taiwan with the status NA ("Not Applicable"). As a rare, "migratory" species with local distribution and declining numbers, Synthliboramphus wumizusume (Хохлатый старик) is included in the 2016 Red Data Book of Sakhalin Oblast in Category 1, in the 2019 Red Data Book of Khabarovsk Krai, as a vary rare vagrant at the edge of its range, also in Category 1, and in the 2005 Red Data Book of Primorsky Krai in Category 3. In the 2011 Red Data Book of Endangered Birds in Korea, with mention of occasional breeding on offshore islands (Gugul Island and the Liancourt Rocks), Synthliboramphus wumizusume has the status Endangered. On the 2020 Japanese Ministry of the Environment Red List, Synthliboramphus wumizusume (カンムリウミスズメ) has the status Vulnerable, as it had done on the 1991, 1998, and 2007 editions.