Albatross Facts

About the albatross

Albatrosses roam the North Pacific and the Southern Ocean but are missing from the North Atlantic, even though fossils of the short-tailed albatross show the group lived there until the Pleistocene. Most species rely on cold water currents for both feeding and nesting. In the air they barely work at all, riding dynamic soaring and slope soaring over huge distances. Squid, fish and krill are on the menu, taken by scavenging, grabbing at the surface or diving.

Colonies form mostly on remote ocean islands, often with several species sharing a site. Couples bond over several years through ritual dances, and the pair stays together for life. Each breeding attempt produces a single egg, and the stretch from laying to fledging can run past a year. The oldest known wild bird is Wisdom, a Laysan albatross living on Midway Island.

Did you know?

• Chandler Robbins put the first band on Wisdom the albatross in 1956.
• Albatrosses belong to the tubenoses, the order Procellariiformes, along with storm petrels and diving petrels.
• Experts disagree about how many albatross species exist, though most sort them into four genera.