--- title: "Wandering Albatross (Diomedea exulans) | AnimalTracks.wiki" description: "Perhaps the longest wingspan of any bird, and in a year off from breeding some circle Antarctica twice or even three times." image: "https://animaltracks.wiki/images/animals/wandering-albatross-1.webp" published: "2026-08-30" updated: "2026-09-29" --- # Wandering Albatross (*Diomedea exulans*) > **Status**: Checked against 10 sources, listed under Sources below. > **Tagline**: Perhaps the longest wingspan of any bird, and in a year off from breeding some circle Antarctica twice or even three times. > **Soundtrack Vibe**: Ska-Punk & 2-Tone // The Specials, "A Message to You, Rudy" > **Soundtrack Links**: [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/49slT7gVW0zj1KIG8w6DoL) | [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6ONesFHXWE) > **Vibe Match**: Choppy offbeat guitar and a trombone line answering the vocal, for an albatross whose mating and territorial displays carry their own percussion and brass: bill-clapping and trumpeting. ## Biological Superpowers & Stats - **Taxonomy**: *Diomedea exulans* - **Danger Level**: Low - **Conservation Status**: Vulnerable ([IUCN Red List](https://doi.org/10.2305/iucn.uk.2018-2.rlts.t22698305a132640680.en)) - **Superpower**: Wingspan of about 3 m, and cruises on tail or side winds using little more energy than a bird resting on land - **Habitat**: Open ocean of the Southern Hemisphere and sub-Antarctic breeding islands - **Diet**: Fish and cephalopods such as squid, plus some carrion - **Tags**: bird, ocean, pelagic, storm-dweller, super-navigator, carnivore ## Natural History & Behavior ## Wings Built for the Windiest Place on Earth The wandering albatross has perhaps the longest wingspan of any bird. A note on names. Scientists have split the old wandering albatross into several species. The name *Diomedea exulans* now goes to the large form of the high southern latitudes, which is sometimes called the snowy albatross. Some sources, such as Animal Diversity Web (ADW), treat several of these forms as subspecies of one species, so this page says whose birds were measured. *D. exulans* breeds on the French island groups of Crozet and Kerguelen, South Africa's Prince Edward Islands, Australia's Macquarie Island and South Georgia. Across all of ADW's subspecies, wingspans run from 2.5 to 3.5 metres and average 3.1 metres. On the Crozet Islands, adult males averaged a wing span of 311 cm and a weight of 9.44 kg. > **Fuel economy** Cruising with a tail or side wind, a wandering albatross can fly fast while using little more energy than a bird resting on land. Effort peaks when it takes off from or lands on the water. ## A Nose for Dinner Fish and cephalopods (the squid and octopus group) are its main food, from about 50 squid species and 10 fish species, and Patagonian toothfish is the main fish. That food is patchy and spread over thousands of square kilometres of open ocean. Smell helps. GPS loggers and stomach-temperature recorders showed that first detecting prey by smell was involved in nearly half (46.8%) of the flights that ended in a catch. Birds tracking a smell fly across the wind, then zigzag upwind toward the source. Birds that see their prey just fly straight at it. ## A Very Slow Life Breeding is a long game. It is a biennial breeder, normally nesting every other year, and lays a single egg. Incubation averages 78 to 79 days, and on South Georgia most chicks spend 278 days in the nest. On the Crozet Islands, birds hatched from 1982 to 1990 started breeding at an average age of 9.6 years for females and 10.4 for males. In the year off between breeding attempts, a third of the tracked Crozet and Kerguelen birds that circled Antarctica went round twice, and two went round three times. Those double and triple trips covered 79,000 to more than 120,000 km. AnAge lists a maximum lifespan of 50 years in the wild, while noting that detailed studies are lacking. In a 30-year study, performance declined with age, then breeding success rose sharply at a bird's final attempt. ## Caught by Accident The IUCN Red List (the global conservation list) rated the species Vulnerable in 2018. ADW says wandering albatrosses are highly vulnerable to becoming bycatch, meaning they are caught by accident in fishing gear, and attributes population declines mostly to it. During late chick-rearing and outside the breeding season, birds from Marion Island and Crozet overlap with intense tuna long-line fishing south of South Africa, where bycatch rates are high. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### Are male wandering albatrosses bigger than females? Yes. In a study on the Crozet Islands, adult males had wings 4% longer and 6.8% more wing area than adult females, and were 20.4% heavier. Together that gave males 12.1% more wing loading, which is the weight each square centimetre of wing has to carry. The authors suggest this may suit males to the windier southern seas and females to lighter winds farther north. *(Source: [Shaffer, Weimerskirch & Costa 2001]())* ### How does a wandering albatross fly so far on so little energy? Researchers fitted males with external heart-rate recorders and used heart rate as a measure of effort. A headwind raised it and slowed the bird. To give themselves the best chance of favourable winds, the birds use predictable weather systems to fly big looping tracks, going anticlockwise when heading north and clockwise when heading south. *(Source: [Weimerskirch et al. 2000]())* ### How old is a wandering albatross when it first breeds? Birds usually come back to the colony at 5 to 7 years old, though some return at 3 on South Georgia and others at 14 on the Crozet Islands. On Crozet, birds begin breeding when at least 7 years old. *(Source: [Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels]())* ## Sources 1. [Diomedea exulans (wandering albatross). Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan.]() 2. [Diomedea exulans. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2018: e.T22698305A132640680.]() 3. [ACAP Species assessment: Wandering Albatross Diomedea exulans. Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels.]() 4. [AnAge entry for Diomedea exulans. Human Ageing Genomic Resources, AnAge database.]() 5. [Shaffer, Weimerskirch & Costa (2001). Functional significance of sexual dimorphism in Wandering Albatrosses, Diomedea exulans. Functional Ecology.]() 6. [Weimerskirch et al. (2000). Fast and fuel efficient? Optimal use of wind by flying albatrosses. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.]() 7. [Sachs et al. (2012). Flying at No Mechanical Energy Cost: Disclosing the Secret of Wandering Albatrosses. PLoS ONE.]() 8. [Nevitt, Losekoot & Weimerskirch (2008). Evidence for olfactory search in wandering albatross, Diomedea exulans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.]() 9. [Weimerskirch et al. (2015). Extreme variation in migration strategies between and within wandering albatross populations during their sabbatical year and their fitness consequences. Scientific Reports.]() 10. [Froy et al. (2013). Age-related variation in reproductive traits in the wandering albatross: evidence for terminal improvement following senescence. Ecology Letters.]() *Published August 30, 2026. 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