| Biology of the Tern Island Albatrosses | |
| The Laysan and black-footed
albatrosses on Tern Island are pretty typical albatrosses. Much of their biology is
like what is described in Albatrosses at Work.
Most albatross species nest in the Southern Hemisphere, and Laysan and
black-footed albatrosses are two of only four species that are found outside the so-called
"Southern Ocean". The other two species are the waved
albatross, nesting in the Galápagos Islands, and the short-tailed albatross, nesting on
islands near Japan. Being closer to the Equator than most albatrosses means that
Laysan and black-footed albatrosses have more problems with heat than some other
albatrosses do. Some tidbits about the
two species on Tern Island: |
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Laysan albatross |
black-footed albatross |
|
Scientific name Nests on Tern I. Their favorite foods |
Diomedea immutabilis about 1,700 late-January Squid (click here to see) |
Diomedea nigripes about 1,700 mid-January Fish and fish eggs |
 Every year, at the end of the nesting
season, the young albatrosses take their first flight to the sea. When they leave
the nest, we say that they "fledge" and that the
birds are "fledglings". The young albatrosses do not return for several years after
that. Some of them don't return at all because they are eaten by sharks. Every year at fledging
time, great numbers of tiger sharks gather
in the lagoon in the middle of French Frigate Shoals atoll. They wait for the
fledglings to hit the water on their first flights and then they attack!
The lucky fledglings, and the fast ones, escape. About 10% of the fledglings
every year become shark food, after all that work that the parents did to raise their
babies. Check out the Hawaiian tiger shark below and you can see why albatrosses
have trouble with them! |
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Tiger shark and scientist, Midway Island,
Northwest Hawaiian Islands. |
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This page was last updated on February 10, 1999 09:21 AM
