The northern fulmar, Arctic fulmar, Fulmars come in one of two colour morphs; a light one in temperate populations, with white head and body and grey wings and tail, and a dark one in arctic populations, which is uniformly grey; intermediate birds are common. Though similar in appearance to gulls, fulmars are in fact members of the family Procellariidae, which includes petrels and shearwaters.

The northern fulmar and its sister species, the southern fulmar (), are the only extant members of the genus . The fulmars are in turn a member of the order Procellariiformes, and they all share certain identifying features. First, they have nasal passages that attach to the upper bill called naricorns; however, nostrils on albatrosses are on the sides of the bill, as opposed to the rest of the order, including fulmars, which have nostrils on top of the upper bill. The bills of Procellariiformes are also unique in that they are split into between seven and nine horny plates. One of these plates makes up the hooked portion of the upper bill, called the maxillary unguis. They produce a stomach oil made up of wax esters and triglycerides that is stored in the proventriculus. This can be sprayed out of their mouths as a defense against predators from a very early age, and as an energy rich food source for chicks and for the adults during their long flights. Linnaeus based his description mainly on the "Mallemucke" that had been described and illustrated in 1675 by the German naturalist Friderich Martens in his account of his voyage to Spitzbergen. The northern fulmar is now placed in the genus Fulmarus that was introduced in 1826 by the English naturalist James Stephens. The genus name comes from the Old Norse ' meaning "foul-mew" or "foul-gull" because of the birds' habit of ejecting a foul-smelling oil. The specific epithet ' is Latin for "icy".

Three subspecies are recognised:

  • F. g. rodgersii Cassin, 1862 – breeds in the North Pacific on the coast of eastern Siberia (south to the Kuril Islands), Alaska, and (in very small numbers) in British Columbia south to Triangle Island; wintering south to Japan in the west and Baja California in the east. Tail contrastingly dark grey.

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|+Population and trends Their nest is a scrape on a grassy ledge or a saucer of vegetation on the ground, lined with softer material. The birds nest in large colonies. and fully fledges after 70 to 75 days. Again, both sexes are involved. A study of 143 northern fulmars from 2008 to 2013 found 89.5% of them containing microplastics within their gastrointestinal tracts. A mean score of 19.5 pieces of plastic and 0.461 g per individual was calculated. This is considerably higher than in past studies on northern fulmars, possibly implying increasing plastic debris in marine ecosystems and shorelines. However, more research is needed to substantiate such conclusion. Long-term data from the Netherlands dating back to the 1980s show an increase in consumer plastics and a decrease in industrial plastics in the stomach contents of fulmars.

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