Animalia Life

Phoebetria palpebrata
TAXONOMY
Phoebetria palpebrata J.R. Forster, 1785, south of Cape of Good Hope. Monotypic.
OTHER COMMON NAMES
English: Light-mantled sooty, gray-mantled albatross; French: Albatros fuligineux; German: Graumantel-RuЯalbatros; Spanish: Albatros Tiznado.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
Wingspan 6.0–7.15 ft (183–218 cm); 6.1–8.1 lb (2.5–3.7 kg). Small, all dark albatross with paler mantle and a partial white eye-ring. Bill black with pale blue sulcus line.
DISTRIBUTION
Widely distributed throughout the southern oceans breeding at South Georgia, Marion, Prince Edward, Crozet, Kerguelen, Heard, Macquarie, Auckland, Campbell, and Antipodes Islands. Distributed at sea generally south of 40° latitude to the edges of Antarctica.
HABITAT
Marine. Generally breeding in isolated nests on sheltered steep slopes or cliff ledges close to a rock face.
BEHAVIOR
Aerial displays and formation flying are a distinctive feature of courtship and pair-bonding
BEHAVIOR
. Mutual calling modulated in tone by the position of the head is an essential part of the displays. Does not have open or extended wing displays, but uses the long tail in display more than other albatrosses.
FEEDING ECOLOGY AND DIET
Mainly solitary at sea, feeding by surface seizing or surface plunging, chiefly for cephalopods and krill. Sometimes fish and carrion including remains of birds at sea. Some observed interaction with commercial fishing.
REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY
Lays one egg between October and November with the 2 week laying period being shorter than other albatrosses except the dark-mantled sooty albatross. Incubation lasts for 65–72 days. Have the longest incubation shifts of any albatross. Hatching takes 3–5 days. Chicks are guarded by a parent for the first three weeks. Mean fledging varies between 140 days (Macquarie) and 170 days (Marion Island). Productivity variable. Monagamous. Generally classed as a biennial breeder. Starts breeding at 8–15 years. Adult annual mortality probably about 3%.
CONSERVATION STATUS
Data Deficient, not globally threatened. Tentatively estimated to have a world population of 30,000 breeding pairs. Main causes of nesting failure seem to be starvation and desertion by parents, which along with the length of foraging stints suggests a species with distant and restricted food sources. Incidence of fisheries bycatch not large.
SIGNIFICANCE TO HUMANS
None known.

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