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What is an albatross?
The albatross is a large seabird in the family Diomedeidae. Albatrosses are known for their ability to glide effortlessly for hours in windy weather using their long, narrow wings. They only come to land to breed, typically in colonies on remote oceanic islands. Albatrosses engage in mating behaviors that include wing-stretching and bill-fencing displays, accompanied by loud groaning sounds. They lay a single large white egg that is incubated by both parents.
Albatrosses primarily eat squid but will also follow ships to feed on garbage. They can live for a long time and may die of old age.
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Where do albatrosses live?
Albatrosses, members of the family Diomedeidae, are large seabirds that live primarily on remote oceanic islands. They only come to shore to breed in colonies. Ten albatross species live in the Southern Hemisphere, gliding on winds and moving north with cold currents along the coasts of South America, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. The wandering albatross nests on Antarctic islands and roams the southern oceans. The black-browed albatross wanders offshore in the North Atlantic. Three North Pacific species include the black-footed and laysan albatrosses, which nest on tropical Pacific islands. The waved albatross uniquely breeds in the Galapagos Islands at the Equator.
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What do albatrosses eat?
Albatrosses are surface feeders that often settle on the water to eat. At night, they eat squid that rise to the surface. During the day, they consume schooling fish, garbage from ships, wounded, exhausted, or dead birds, and carrion, including the flesh of dead whales and other cetaceans.
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How are albatrosses able to fly long distances?
Albatrosses are remarkable gliders, capable of staying aloft for hours in windy conditions without flapping their long, narrow wings. They use a technique called dynamic soaring to fly long distances. This involves a series of inclined loops that are perpendicular to the wind's direction. An albatross will begin gliding from about 15 meters (50 feet) above the sea, increasing its velocity as it glides downwind.
As the bird nears the sea, it turns into the wind, using the forward flight velocity to lift itself back to its initial gliding height. This cycle is then repeated. The ability of albatrosses to move upwind without flapping depends on the fact that wind velocity is lower near the waves than it is a few meters in the air. Though their flight appears effortless, albatrosses expend energy to keep their long, narrow wings fully extended.
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Why are the wings of albatrosses special?
Albatrosses are remarkable for their ability to stay aloft for hours in windy conditions without flapping their wings due to their extremely long, narrow wings. The wandering albatross has the largest wingspan among living birds, reaching over 340 cm (11 feet).
Their capacity to move upwind without flapping relies on the variance in wind velocity between the air near the waves and the air a few meters above. Their flight pattern consists of broad ellipses, building momentum in the upper air layers and moving upwind in the lower layers, then gliding downwind to regain momentum. Though their flight appears effortless, albatrosses expend energy to keep their long, narrow wings fully extended.
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What challenges do albatross populations face today?
Albatross populations face several challenges today, including:
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Plastic Pollution Albatrosses and other seabirds often ingest plastic, mistaking it for food. This can lead to starvation and death.
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Overfishing Commercial fishing fleets can deplete the squid populations that albatrosses rely on for food, threatening their food supply.
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Bycatch Albatrosses suffer high mortality as bycatch in unregulated longline fishing.
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Historical Exploitation In the 18th and 19th centuries, albatrosses were hunted for food and the millinery trade, though this has decreased with conservation efforts.
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albatross, (family Diomedeidae), 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.
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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.
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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.