Laysan albatross

The Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis) is a large seabird of the North Pacific. It has a white head and underside, a dark gray back and wings, and a pink bill with a dark tip. It averages about 81 centimetres long, and its wingspan is around two metres.

Almost all of them, about 99.7 percent, nest on the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, especially Midway and Laysan. It is the second most common seabird in the Hawaiian Islands, with an estimated 1.18 million birds. A Laysan albatross named Wisdom is famous as the oldest known wild bird, still raising chicks after the age of 70.

Life over the open ocean

Laysan albatrosses spend most of their lives far out over the North Pacific. With long narrow wings they glide on ocean winds with very little flapping, which saves energy on long trips.

They come back to land to breed, in 16 known nesting sites. Small groups nest on the Bonin Islands near Japan, and some birds have begun to settle on islands off Mexico such as Guadalupe Island, where they are protected.

A name from an island

The bird is named after Laysan, one of its nesting islands and the place where the first specimen was collected. The Latin species name immutabilis means unchanging, because young birds look so much like adults.

The Laysan albatross is easy to tell apart from the all-black black-footed albatross that shares its waters. The IUCN lists it as near threatened. Its wings can carry it over very long distances across the open sea.

On the globe

The model shows a Laysan albatross with long narrow wings, near the Hawaiian islands where most of them nest.