Phoebetria

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Sooty albatross
Light-mantled albatross (Phoebetria palpebrata)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Procellariiformes
Family: Diomedeidae
Genus: Phoebetria
Reichenbach, 1853
Type species
Diomedea fuliginosa[1]
Gmelin, 1789
Species

Phoebetria fusca
Sooty albatross
Phoebetria palpebrata
Light-mantled albatross

The sooty albatrosses are small albatrosses from the genus Phoebetria. There are two species, the sooty albatross, Phoebetria fusca, and the light-mantled albatross, Phoebetria palpebrata.

Systematics

The sooties have long been considered distinct from the rest of the other albatrosses, and have retained their generic status through the many revisions of the family over the last 150 years. They have traditionally been thought of as primitive, sharing some morphological features with the other petrel families. However, molecular work examining the mitochondrial DNA has shown that the taxon is related to the mollymawks, and that the two taxa are distinct from the great albatrosses and the North Pacific albatrosses.[2]

Genus Phoebetria – Reichenbach, 1853 – two species
Common name Scientific name and subspecies Range Size and ecology IUCN status and estimated population
sooty albatross, dark-mantled sooty albatross or dark-mantled albatross

Phoebetria fusca
(Hilsenberg, 1822) 		southern Atlantic Ocean (Gough Island and the Tristan da Cunha group) and Indian Ocean
Map of range 		Size:

Habitat:

Diet: 		 EN 


light-mantled albatross, grey-mantled albatross or the light-mantled sooty albatross

Phoebetria palpebrata
(Forster, 1785) 		circumpolar pelagic distribution in the Southern Ocean
Map of range 		Size:

Habitat:

Diet: 		 NT 


Description

Both have distinctive blackish plumage over the head, wings and bellies. The sooty albatross has a dark back and mantle as well, whereas the light-mantled has an ashy-grey mantle, back and rump. The two species can also be told apart by the narrow yellow line on the sooty's bill. Despite the differences between the two species they can be hard to tell apart at sea, especially in poor light. Both species have a white incomplete eye-ring, dark bills and grey feet. They are among the smallest albatrosses, with wingspans of 200 cm (79 in) and are very narrow as well. The light-mantled, at 2.5 to 3.7 kg (5.5–8.2 lb) and sometimes to 4.6 kg (10 lb), is larger than the sooty, at 2.4 to 2.7 kg (5.3–6.0 lb). Unique amongst the albatrosses they have long stiff wedge shaped tails, the purpose of which is unclear but seems to be related to their ability to dive for food.

Light-mantled albatross, head detail

Reproduction

The two species, like most

incubated for 70 days, by both parents, the male taking the first stint after laying (lasting 11 days) thereafter both parents taking it in turns of 7 days. After hatching the chick is brooded for 20 days until it is able to thermoregulate on its own, after which both parents undertake the task of feeding it, on average bringing food to the chick every three days. The chick is fed for about 160 days, until it is able to fledge
. There is no parental care after fledging. They are able to complete a breeding cycle in under a year, but do not breed in consecutive years, instead taking a year off and returning to breed every two years. Around 22% of the sooty albatrosses survive until adulthood (there are no figures for light-mantled). Both species return to the breeding colony after 7–10 years of fledging, and begin to breed a few years later.

Range and habitat

Sooty albatrosses nest on islands in the

South Georgia in the Atlantic, many of the same islands in the Indian Ocean, Macquarie Island and New Zealand's subantarctic islands. At sea it forages further south than the sooty to Antarctica, and around the Southern Ocean as far north as Chile, Tasmania and South Africa
. At sea they often eat more fish as opposed to squid than other albatross species, and the sooties also readily take carrion and particularly other seabirds. They also are the deepest diving of the albatross, often diving to 5 m (16 ft) and once being recorded as deep as 12 m (39 ft).

Conservation

The two species face similar threats,

near threatened
.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Diomedeidae". aviansystematics.org. The Trust for Avian Systematics. Retrieved 2023-07-27.
  2. JSTOR 4088857
    .

Further reading
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