Wandering albatross
| Wandering albatross | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Procellariiformes |
| Family: | Diomedeidae |
| Genus: | Diomedea |
| Species: | D. exulans |
| Binomial name | |
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Diomedea exulans Linnaeus, 1758 |
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| Subspecies | |
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Diomedea exulans exulans(Linnaeus, 1758) |
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Diomedea exulans exulans(Linnaeus, 1758)
Diomedea exulans gibsoni
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 first species of albatross to be described, and was long considered the same species as the Tristan albatross and the Antipodean albatross. A few authors still consider them all subspecies of the same species. The SACC has a proposal on the table to split this species, and BirdLife International has already split it. Together with the Amsterdam albatross, it forms the wandering albatross species complex. The wandering albatross is one of the two largest members of the genus Diomedea (the great albatrosses), being similar in size to the southern royal albatross. It is one of the largest birds in the world, and one of the best known and studied species of bird in the world. This is also one of the most far ranging birds. Some individual wandering albatrosses are known to circumnavigate the Southern Ocean three times (covering more than 120,000 km or 75,000 miles) in one year.
The wandering albatross was first described as Diomedea exulans by Carl Linnaeus, in 1758, based on a specimen from the Cape of Good Hope.Diomedea refers to Diomedes whose companions turned to birds, and exulans or exsul are Latin for "exile" or "wanderer" referring to its extensive flights. There are two subspecies:
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