Puffinus is a Neo-Latin loanword based on the English "puffin" and its variants, that referred to the cured carcass of the fat nestling of the Manx shearwater, a former delicacy.

[2] The specific mauretanicus refers to Mauretania, an old name for an area of North Africa roughly corresponding to Morocco and Algeria.

At least one mixed breeding colony of Balearic and yelkouan shearwaters exists on Menorca, and the species' winter ranges overlap in the Central Mediterranean; for scientific purposes at least, a combination of morphological characteristics and DNA sequence data is suggested to identify the species.

Most winter in that sea, but some enter the Atlantic in late summer, reaching north to Great Britain and Ireland.

It is silent at sea, but at night the breeding colonies are alive with raucous cackling calls, higher pitched than the Manx shearwater's.

This species nests in burrows and caves [15] which are visited only at night to avoid predation by large gulls.

[citation needed] The discovery of yelkouan shearwaters in the Menorcan colony suggests that hybridization may also pose a problem.