Albatross

Jai Ganesh · 2025-09-21 17:36:59

Albatross

Gist

Albatrosses are special due to their record-breaking wingspans and highly efficient "dynamic soaring" flight, allowing them to glide effortlessly over oceans for months or even years at a time without landing. They are masters of long-distance travel, covering vast distances with minimal energy expenditure, and possess unique adaptations like the ability to stay airborne for extended periods, the capability to mate for life, and a long lifespan potentially exceeding 50 years.

Albatrosses can stay airborne for days or weeks at a time and young albatrosses can spend their first six or more years without ever landing on land, though they will land on the water to rest and feed. They achieve these incredible feats by using dynamic soaring to harness wind energy with their large wingspans, allowing them to glide for long distances with minimal flapping and even sleep on the wing.

Summary

Albatrosses, of the biological family Diomedeidae, are large seabirds related to the procellariids, storm petrels, and diving petrels in the order Procellariiformes (the tubenoses). They range widely in the Southern Ocean and the North Pacific. They are absent from the North Atlantic, although fossil remains of short-tailed albatross show they lived there up to the Pleistocene, and occasional vagrants are found. Great albatrosses are among the largest of flying birds, with wingspans reaching up to 2.5–3.5 metres (8.2–11.5 ft) and bodies over 1 metre (3.3 ft) in length. The albatrosses are usually regarded as falling into four genera, but disagreement exists over the number of species.

Albatrosses are highly efficient in the air, using dynamic soaring and slope soaring to cover great distances with little exertion. They feed on squid, fish, and krill by either scavenging, surface seizing, or diving. Albatrosses are colonial, nesting for the most part on remote oceanic islands, often with several species nesting together. Pair bonds between males and females form over several years, with the use of "ritualised dances", and last for the life of the pair. A breeding season can take over a year from laying to fledging, with a single egg laid in each breeding attempt. A Laysan albatross, named Wisdom, on Midway Island is the oldest-known wild bird in the world; she was first banded in 1956 by Chandler Robbins.

Of the 22 species of albatrosses recognised by the IUCN, 21 are listed as at some level of concern; two species are Critically Endangered, seven species are Endangered, six species are Vulnerable, and six species are Near Threatened. Numbers of albatrosses have declined in the past due to harvesting for feathers. Albatrosses are threatened by introduced species, such as rats and feral cats that attack eggs, chicks, and nesting adults; by pollution; by a serious decline in fish stocks in many regions largely due to overfishing; and by longline fishing. Longline fisheries pose the greatest threat, as feeding birds are attracted to the bait, become hooked on the lines, and drown. Identified stakeholders such as governments, conservation organisations, and people in the fishing industry are all working toward reducing this phenomenon.

Details

Albatross, (family Diomedeidae), is any of more than a dozen species of large seabirds that collectively make up the family Diomedeidae (order Procellariiformes). Because of their tameness on land, many albatrosses are known by the common names mollymawk (from the Dutch for “foolish gull”) and gooney. Albatrosses are among the most spectacular gliders of all birds, able to stay aloft in windy weather for hours without ever flapping their extremely long, narrow wings. In calm air an albatross has trouble keeping its stout body airborne and prefers to rest on the water surface. Like other oceanic birds, albatrosses drink seawater. Although they normally live on squid, they also are seen to accompany ships to feed on garbage.

Albatrosses come ashore only to breed. This activity occurs in colonies that are usually established on remote oceanic islands, where groups and pairs exhibit mating behaviour that includes wing-stretching and bill-fencing displays accompanied by loud groaning sounds. The single large white egg, laid on the bare ground or in a heaped-up nest, is incubated by the parents in turn. The growth of the young albatross is very slow, especially in the larger species; it attains flight plumage in 3 to 10 months, then spends the next 5 to 10 years at sea, passing through several preadult plumages before coming to land to mate. Albatrosses live long and may be among the few birds to die of old age.

Seamen once held albatrosses in considerable awe; they held that killing an albatross would bring bad luck, a superstition reflected in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” In spite of this superstition, the birds were often taken on baited hooks by sailors for meat. The foot web could be fashioned into a tobacco pouch, and the long hollow bones were used as pipestems. At one time professional plume hunters even raided breeding grounds. The North Pacific species were slaughtered in large numbers for their feathers, which were used in the millinery trade and as swansdown.

Some of the best-known albatrosses are the following.

The black-browed albatross (Thalassarche melanophris), with a wingspread to about 230 cm (7.5 feet), wanders far offshore in the North Atlantic. A dark eye-streak gives it a frowning appearance.

The black-footed albatross (Diomedea nigripes), one of three North Pacific species, has a wingspread to about 200 cm (6.5 feet) and is largely sooty brown in colour. It nests on tropical Pacific islands and wanders widely throughout the North Pacific.

The laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis), with a wingspread to about 200 cm, has a white body and dark upper wing surfaces. Its distribution is about the same as the black-footed albatross.

The royal albatross (D. epomophora), with a wingspread to about 315 cm (about 10 feet), is largely white with black outer wing surfaces. It breeds on islands near New Zealand and near the southern tip of South America.

The sooty albatrosses (Phoebetria, 2 species) have a wingspread to about 215 cm (7 feet). They nest on islands in the southern oceans.

The wandering albatross (D. exulans) has the largest wingspread among living birds—to more than 340 cm (11 feet). The adult is essentially like the royal albatross. It nests on islands near the Antarctic Circle and on some islands in the South Atlantic, and in the nonbreeding season it roams the southern oceans north to about 30° S.

The Amsterdam albatross (D. amsterdamensis) has a wingspread of 280–340 cm (9–11 feet). Once thought to be a subspecies of the wandering albatross, it was shown by DNA analysis in 2011 to have diverged from the wandering albatross more than 265,000 years ago. The species exists as a single critically endangered population of approximately 170 individuals on the island of Nouvelle Amsterdam in the southern Indian Ocean.

Additional Information

Albatrosses — legendary protectors of seafarers — are heading for extinction. Biologists have discovered that swordfish, tuna and other fishing fleets are killing more that 100,000 of these birds every year. In a couple of decades many species may be wiped out unless urgent action is taken.

The wandering albatross is the largest of seabirds, with a wing span reaching three metres and a body mass of 8–12kg. All species of albatross lay a single egg, several species breed only every second year and most take 10 years to reach sexual maturity. They have very long lifespans, with some individuals living to over 60 years of age. But many are now being killed off before they can reach half that age, and as a result populations are in rapid decline. Albatrosses have one of the lowest reproductive rates of any bird.

Albatrosses cover huge distances when foraging for food, even during breeding, with the foraging ranges of most species covering thousands of square kilometres of ocean. The largest of albatrosses, the wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans), ranges from sub-tropical to Antarctic waters on trips covering up to 10,000km in 10–20 days. It arrives in November to breed in loose colonies on flat grasslands, giving plenty of room for its spectacular displays. It lays eggs in December, chicks hatch in April and are reared throughout the winter (on a diet of fish and squid and carrion) fledging in November and December. Successful parents then take a year off, migrating to feeding areas all around the Southern Ocean.

Outside the breeding season, most species migrate long distances, some (like wandering and grey-headed albatrosses) travelling right round the Southern Ocean. While at sea, birds can travel 1,000km in a single day, with one grey-headed albatross recorded as circumnavigating Antarctica in just 46 days.

The four species breeding at South Georgia represent all three of the southern hemisphere genera. Only one, the black-browed albatross (Thalassarche melanophris), breeds annually, occurring in large colonies on hillsides, taking 5.5 months from egg-laying to chick-fledging, feeding its chick on a diet mainly of krill, and to a lesser extent fish and squid. This is obtained chiefly from the shelf waters around South Georgia and the South Orkney Islands. After breeding, birds migrate to South African waters.

Its close relative, the grey-headed albatross (Thalassarche chrysostoma), breeds only every two years on steep coastal slopes. The light-mantled sooty albatross (Phoebetria palpebrata) is also biennial and breeds solitarily or in very small groups on cliffs. Both these species feed mainly on squid and krill.

The populations of all these species at South Georgia are decreasing. The decline of wandering albatrosses is primarily due to their being caught on baited hooks set by tuna longliners in temperate and subtropical waters. The albatrosses try to eat the bait and get dragged under and drowned. Most other species are also killed by longliners, and recently it has become clear that collisions with trawl net cables are an additional, and potentially worse, source of mortality.

Much of the damage is caused by illegal fishing, which accounts for many thousands of deaths each year. However, a range of measures are currently in force to try to reduce the number of albatrosses being killed. These include:

* weighting of lines so they sink quickly
* retention of offal on board so that birds are not enticed to the vessel in the first place
* setting lines at night
* setting up bird-scaring or ‘tori’ lines — made up of brightly-coloured streamers to startle seabirds

Locations

In the Antarctic, albatrosses are found near BAS operations at Bird Island and Signy research stations.

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#1 2025-09-21 17:36:59

Albatross

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