The great albatrosses are

seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same enviro ...

s in the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

''Diomedea'' in the albatross

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

. The genus ''Diomedea'' formerly included all albatrosses except the

sooty albatross The sooty albatross, dark-mantled sooty albatross or dark-mantled albatross,BirdLife International (2008b) (''Phoebetria fusca''), is a species of bird in the albatross family. They breed on sub-Antarctic islands and range at sea across the S ...

es, but in 1996 the genus was split, with the

mollymawk The mollymawks are a group of medium-sized albatrosses that form the genus ''Thalassarche''. The name has sometimes been used for the genus ''Phoebetria'' as well, but these are usually called sooty albatrosses. They are restricted to the Sout ...

s and the

North Pacific albatross The North Pacific albatrosses are large seabirds from the genus ''Phoebastria'' in the albatross family. They are the most tropical of the albatrosses, with two species (the Laysan and black-footed albatrosses) nesting in the Northwestern Hawaiia ...

es both being elevated to separate genera. The great albatrosses themselves form two species complexes, the wandering and Amsterdam albatrosses, and the royal albatrosses. The splitting of the great albatrosses into six or seven

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

has been accepted by most, though not all, authorities.

Description

The

wandering albatross The wandering albatross, snowy albatross, white-winged albatross or goonie (''Diomedea exulans'') is a large seabird from the family Diomedeidae, which has a circumpolar range in the Southern Ocean. It was the last species of albatross to be desc ...

and the

southern royal albatross The southern royal albatross or toroa, (''Diomedea epomophora'') is a large seabird from the albatross family. At an average wingspan of above , it is one of the two largest species of albatross, together with the wandering albatross. Recent stu ...

are the largest of the albatrosses and are among the largest of flying birds. They have the largest wingspans of any bird, being up to from tip to tip, although the average is a little over . Large adult males of these two species may exceed in weight, as heavy as a large swan. Diomedea (great albatross) heads

The great albatrosses are predominantly white in plumage as adults, with birds becoming whiter as they age. The two royal albatrosses at all ages and the larger, older male

es are totally white-bodied, while adult females and younger animals of the other species have dark pencilling marks on the edges of their feathers. Generally the smaller species or subspecies and the juveniles have more dark brown colour. The recently discovered Amsterdam albatross retains the dark brown plumage of juvenile birds into adulthood.

Habitat and range

The great albatrosses range across the

Southern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is regarded as the second-small ...

, and nest (for the most part) on isolated oceanic islands. The wandering albatrosses nest on islands around the Southern Ocean, from the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

( South Georgia and

Tristan da Cunha Tristan da Cunha (), colloquially Tristan, is a remote group of volcanic islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world, lying approximately from Cape Town in South Africa, from Saint Helena a ...

), to the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...

and

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

's Subantarctic islands. The royal albatrosses nest only on New Zealand's Subantarctic islands, with one unusual colony on New Zealand's

Otago Peninsula The Otago Peninsula ( mi, Muaūpoko) is a long, hilly indented finger of land that forms the easternmost part of Dunedin, New Zealand. Volcanic in origin, it forms one wall of the eroded valley that now forms Otago Harbour. The peninsula lies sou ...

Taxonomy

The

''Diomedea'' was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

in the tenth edition of his '' Systema Naturae''. The genus name is from

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...

. When the hero Diomedes died his companions were turned into white seabirds. The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specime ...

was designated as the

(''Diomedea exulans'') by

George Robert Gray George Robert Gray FRS (8 July 1808 – 6 May 1872) was an English zoologist and author, and head of the ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, in London for forty-one years. He was the younger brother ...

in 1840.

Species

The genus contains six species: * ''Diomedea epomophora'',

* ''Diomedea sanfordi'',

northern royal albatross The northern royal albatross or toroa, (''Diomedea sanfordi''), is a large seabird in the albatross family. It was split from the closely related southern royal albatross as recently as 1998, though not all scientists support that conclusion and ...

* ''Diomedea exulans'',

* ''Diomedea antipodensis'', Antipodean albatross ** ''Diomedea antipodensis gibsoni'',

Gibson's albatross Gibson's albatross (''Diomedea antipodensis gibsoni''), also known as the Auckland Islands wandering albatross or Gibson's wandering albatross, is a large seabird in the great albatross group of the albatross family. The common name and trinomi ...

* ''Diomedea dabbenena'',

Tristan albatross The Tristan albatross (''Diomedea dabbenena'') is a large seabird from the albatross family. One of the great albatrosses of the genus ''Diomedea'', it was only widely recognised as a full species in 1998. Taxonomy Albatrosses belong to the fami ...

* ''Diomedea amsterdamensis'', Amsterdam albatross The earliest known fossils of the genus are from the Middle

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

, about 12–15 mya. By that time, the genera ''Phoebastria'' and ''Diomedea'' had already diverged. Fossil species * ''Diomedea milleri'' (Round Mountain Silt Middle Miocene of Sharktooth Hill and possibly Astoria Middle Miocene of Oregon, US) * ''Diomedea'' sp. (Late Miocene of Valdez Peninsula, Antarctica) * ''Diomedea'' sp. (Early Pliocene of South Africa) * ''Diomedea'' sp. (Early Pliocene of Bone Valley, Florida, US) * ''Diomedea thyridata'' Wilkinson, 1969 (Upper

, Beaumaris Bay Fossil Site, Australia) Beaumaris Bay Fossil Site, Beaumaris, VIC Profile
aussieheritage.com.au At least four species were found in the Early Pliocene deposits of Lee Creek Mine,

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...

in the US. These may in part be identical with the forms mentioned above. Assignment of the undescribed taxa to ''Diomedea'' is tentative since most of them were discovered before the splitting of this genus. Especially the Southern Hemisphere species probably belong to other genera.

Description

Habitat and range

Taxonomy

Species

See also

References

Further reading