Salvin's albatross

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Salvin's albatross
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Procellariiformes
Family: Diomedeidae
Genus: Thalassarche
Species:
T. salvini
Binomial name
Thalassarche salvini
(
Rothschild, 1893)[2]
Synonyms

Thalassarche cauta salvini

Salvin's albatross (Thalassarche salvini) or Salvin's mollymawk, is a large seabird that breeds mainly on the Bounty Islands of New Zealand, with scant amounts on islands across the Southern Ocean. A medium-sized mollymawk, it was long considered to be a subspecies of the shy albatross.

Taxonomy

Mollymawks are a type of albatross that belong to the family

triglycerides that is stored in the proventriculus. This is used against predators as well as an energy rich food source for chicks and for the adults during their long flights.[3] Finally, they have a salt gland that is situated above the nasal passage and helps desalinate their bodies, due to the high amount of ocean water that they imbibe. It excretes a high saline solution from their nose.[4]

Salvin's albatross,

sister taxa
, and more distantly related to the shy.

Etymology

The species was named by Lord

ornithologist Osbert Salvin
.

Description

In flight

Salvin's albatross is about 90 cm (35 in) and 2.56 m (8.4 ft) across the wings. It weighs 3.3–4.9 kg (7.3–10.8 lb) and is, alongside the shy albatross, the largest of the mollymawk or small albatross group.[13] The adult bird has a silver-grey crown. Its face, upper throat, and upper mantle are grey, and its back, upperwing, and tail are grey-black. It has a white rump and underparts with a black thumbmark on underwing and black narrow leading and trailing edges on the wing and black wing tips. Its bill is pale grey-green with a pale yellow upper ridge, and a bright yellow tip on the upper mandible, and a dark spot on the tip of the lower mandible. The juveniles have more extensive grey areas and a blue-grey bill with black tips on both mandibles.[6] It can be distinguished from the Chatham albatross by its larger size and grey bill, and from the shy albatross by the greyer head. Such differences can be difficult to pick out at sea, however, and this explains the under-representation of this species in at-sea surveys.

Behavior

Feeding

Salvin's albatross feeds mainly on fish and cephalopods.[14]

Reproduction

Breeding Population and Trends[6]
Location Population Date Trend
Bounty Islands 30,750 pairs 1998 Possibly declining
Western Chain Islets, Snares Islands
 < 650 pairs 1984
The Pyramid, Chatham Islands 2 pairs 2006
Forty-Fours
 1+ pairs 2007
Île des Pingouins, Crozet Islands 1—4 pairs 2002
Total 62,000 1998 Possibly declining

It breeds mainly on small rocky islands with little vegetation,[15] and the nest is a pedestal made of mud, feathers, and bird bones.[16] A single egg is laid in September, and incubated by both parents until early November. The chicks fledge after about 4 months.

Range and habitat

Salvin's albatross breed

Forty-Fours Island.[15][18][19] At sea they range from South Africa across to Australia and as far east as the coast of South America
. In the early 2000s, an adult Salvin's albatross was seen by a fisheries observer 700-800mi north of the Hawaiian islands. This sighting was supported by a photograph.

Conservation

The

Forty-fours Island in 2007.[22]

Forty-fours Island, which are privately owned, are nature preserves. In 1998, the Snares Islands and Bounty Islands were declared World Heritage Sites, and in 2006, the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission adopted a measure to require bird bycatch mitigation measures south of 30°S.[6]

Footnotes

  1. ^
    doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2018-2.RLTS.T22698388A132644161.en
    . Retrieved 12 November 2021.
  2. ^ Brands, S. (2008)
  3. ^ Double, M. C. (2003)
  4. ^ Ehrlich, Paul R. (1988)
  5. ^ Robertson, C. J. R. & Nunn, G. B. (1998)
  6. ^ a b c d BirdLife International (2008)
  7. ^ a b c Brooke, M. (2004)
  8. ^ ACAP (2007)
  9. ^ Remsen Jr., J. V. (2004)
  10. ^ Remsen Jr., J. V. (2005)
  11. ^ Remsen Jr., J. V. (2008)
  12. ^ Clements, J. (2007)
  13. ISBN 978-0-19-850125-1
  14. ^ Marchant, S. & Higgins, P. J. (1990)
  15. ^ a b c Croxall, J. P. & Gales, R. (1998)
  16. ^ a b Robertson, C. J. R. & van Tets (1982)
  17. ^ a b Jouventin, P. (1990)
  18. ^ a b Taylor, G. A. (2000)
  19. ^ Miskelly, C. M., et al. (2006)
  20. ^ Booth, A. M. (1999)
  21. ^ Clark, G., et al. (1998)
  22. ^ Robertson, C. J. R. (2008)

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Thalassarche salvini.
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