There are two subspecies; A. a. alle breeds in Greenland, Novaya Zemlya and Svalbard; and A. a. polaris on Franz Josef Land.

[9] The little auk was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae.

Little auks produce a variety of twitters and cackling calls at the breeding colonies, but tend to be silent at sea.

Recent evidence suggests that the little auk forages not by filter-feeding on planktonic prey, but by visually-guided suction-feeding.

[18][23] The British record count was made at the Farne Islands in Northumberland following strong northerly gales on 9–11 November 2007, with 18,381 flying north on 9th and 28,803 on 11th.

[18][25] Due to their habit of feeding near shore during both summer and winter months, the species has been an important source of food for Inuit of Greenland, Baffin Island, and Labrador, as well as at parts of its southern range in eastern Canada.

It was a food of last resort to prevent winter starvation amongst the fisher people of Newfoundland's outport communities.

Shot with BB pellets on ice pans off Newfoundland's south coast, a feed would consist of 5–6 birds per person.

Although populations appear to be decreasing, this is not currently thought to be rapid enough to be of concern for the species in the medium term, especially as global little auk numbers are generally rather fluid.

[1] Little auks have been shown to be able to buffer fluctuations in prey availability, caused by climate change, via plasticity in their foraging behaviour, which is likely to make accurate conservation assessments more difficult.