[3] Whiskered auklets feed in the inshore zone, usually within 16 km of land, where tidal currents concentrate their prey into dense swarms.

They feed predominantly on copepods during the summer months, mostly on the species Neocalanus plumchrus; and switching to euphausiid krill in the fall and winter.

The whiskered auklet was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae.

[5][6] The whiskered auklet is now one of four small auks placed in the genus Aethia that was introduced by the German naturalist Blasius Merrem in 1788.

[7][8] The genus name Aethia is from the Ancient Greek aithuia, an unidentified seabird mentioned by Aristotle.