It is distributed across the Southern Ocean but breeds at a few island sites, all close to the Antarctic Convergence zone.

The blue petrel was first described in 1777 by the German naturalist Georg Forster in his book A Voyage Round the World.

[3] Forster did not give the blue petrel a binomial name, but when the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin updated Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae in 1789 he included a brief description of the bird, coined the binomial name Procellaria caerulea and cited Forster's book.

This is used against predators as well as an energy rich food source for chicks and for the adults during their long flights.

[9] Finally, it also has a salt gland that is situated above the nasal passage and helps desalinate its body, due to the high amount of ocean water it drinks.

[12] The blue petrel feeds predominantly on krill, as well as other crustaceans, small fish, squid and occasionally insects.

The blue petrel has a very large range and an estimate population of 3,000,000 adult birds and thus it is rated as Least Concern, by the IUCN.