The accepted type locality of the Whiskered Auklet Aethia pygmaea, St. Matthew Island, is considered to be erroneous because it lies far outside of the bird's geographic range. The species was founded on the description of a now-lost immature specimen taken on the third voyage of James Cook, and the locality was probably a misattribution due to a simple transcription error. We here designate as revised type locality ‘Unalaska Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska,’ a place known to have been visited on Cook's third voyage where and at a time when immature birds would have been present.