An albatross has an average wingspan of 11ft.
They spend most of their days out at sea and spend hours gliding on headwinds.
The ancestral Hawaiian name for the bird is moli, which means a bone tattoo needle which was made from the bone of an albatross.
The bird was famously mentioned in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's epic poem 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,' where the mariner shot an albatross, which was considered a sign of good luck.
As punishment, the mariner was forced to wear the dead albatross across his neck.
At 68-years-old, the world's oldest known breeding bird, an albatross named Wisdom (pictured), has laid another egg. Wisdom was first spotted incubating an egg at the same nesting site her and her mate, Akeakamai, user each year on Midway Atoll, an island in the Hawaiian archipelago
Wisdom the Albatross, the world's oldest breeding bird, to become a mother for the 37th time at 68
- Almost every year for six decades, Wisdom has laid an egg on Midway Atoll
- Midway Atoll in the North Pacific is 1,200 miles northwest of Honolulu, Hawaii
- It takes nearly seven months to incubate the egg and raise a chick to fledge
- Should her latest egg hatch it will be her 37th
- During that time, Wisdom and her partner, Akeakamai, take turns incubating the egg or caring for the chick, while the other partner forages for food at sea .
Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6465255/Wisdom-worlds-oldest-breeding-bird-set-mother-68.html
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