Albatross
In the past, superstitious sailors regarded albatross as the reappearance of the undead companions who were unfortunately buried in the sea. Therefore, they were convinced that killing an albatross would bring disaster. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem "The Rhymes of the Ancient Mariner" tells the story of how disaster befell a ship after an albatross was shot. However, even so, many 19th-century sailors were still keen to prey on these birds to enrich the monotonous meals on long voyages, folding their feet into tobacco pouches and placing their wing bones into pipes. The word "albatross" is developed from the Portuguese word "alcatraz", which was originally used to refer to any large seabird. Apparently, this Portuguese word is derived from the Arabic "al-cadous", which refers to pelican. .
The albatross differs from other birds in this order ( Shepariformes ) in that the position of their tubular external nostrils is distributed on both sides of the beak base, rather than converging on the top of the beak base. The Albatross family is divided into 4 genera: "Diomedea", the "Greater Albatross", which includes 6 species with an average wingspan of 3 meters;
"Thalassarche", which has 9 relatively small species, often called It is "mollymauks" (from the Dutch "mollemok", originally referring to the smelly gull); the genus "Phoebastria" includes 4 species in the North Pacific and the tropical Pacific. The genus "Phoebetria" consists of the dark-colored sooty and gray-backed albatrosses, which have relatively long wings. Through molecular analysis in recent years, the number of recognized albatrosses species has increased from 14 to 21.
Representative species of albatross
1. An immature black-browed albatross is flying; 2. A pair of Kashima albatrosses showing off in courtship; 3. A gray-backed albatross and its chicks; 4. A Wandering albatross and its chicks, the chicks can consume 65 kilograms of food during the rearing period.
Gliding Champion
Form and Function
Albatross are famous for their effortless flight. They can glide along with a ship for hours with barely a beat of their wings. One of their adaptations to reduce muscle energy consumption during gliding is a special tendon that holds the extended wings in place.
The second reason is that the length of the wings is astonishing. Compared with other birds of the order Herbiformes, the albatrosses (mainly on the islands off the coast of Japan and Taiwan, China), the black-footed albatrosses of the Northwest Pacific and the Hawaiian Islands Laysan albatrosses all breed in the North Pacific. There are no albatrosses breeding in the North Atlantic today, although they did in the Pleistocene 1.8 to 10,000 years ago, but a few of those that strayed into the North Atlantic are known to have survived for decades. The reason why there are no albatross populations in the North Atlantic today is probably because the post-Pleistocene dispersal phenomenon did not occur there.
Depend on the ocean
for food
It is not difficult to know from the habit of following ships that albatross is a famous scavenger and likes to eat the waste thrown from the ship. Their food range is very wide, but a detailed analysis of the ingredients in their stomachs found that fish, squid, and crustaceans constitute the albatrosses' main food sources. They mainly hunt these animals on the sea surface, but occasionally, like boobies , they will dive into the water to a depth of 6 meters (Grey-headed Albatross) or even up to 12 meters (Grey-backed Albatross).
Albatrosses sometimes forage at night, when many marine organisms are on the surface. Detailed information on the ratio of albatross foraging during the day to night time was obtained by having the albatrosses swallow a sensor. The sensor, located in the stomach, records the immediate drop in body temperature when an albatross swallows a fish caught in the frigid waters of the Southern Ocean. The proportions of food components consumed vary from species to species, and this has a strong impact on the reproductive biology of albatrosses.
During the breeding season, albatrosses (such as the pair of wandering albatrosses in this picture) will join forces to perform courtship rituals, such as performing a strange ballet-like dance, including bowing, digging, biting their beaks, and making nasal sounds.
