Chordata · chordates
Wandering albatross
Diomedea exulans
Diomedeidae · albatrossesIUCN: Vulnerable
The bird with the largest wingspan. It glides for hours without flapping.
Fun factSome fly more than 120,000 km in a single year.
- Waters
- Southern Ocean
- Depth zone
- Open-ocean surface waters
- Diet
- Squid & fish
- Size
- Wingspan up to 3.5 m
Classification
Chordata › Reptilia › Procellariiformes › Diomedeidae
- Kingdom Animalia animals
- Many-celled organisms that eat other living things for energy (heterotrophs)
- Cells have no cell walls
- Most can move at some stage of life
- Clade Bilateria bilateral animals
- Body has a left and right side that mirror each other (bilateral symmetry)
- Head end with concentrated nerves; three tissue layers
- Includes about 99% of all living animal species
- Clade Deuterostomia deuterostomes
- In the embryo, the first opening becomes the anus and the mouth forms second
- Includes echinoderms and chordates
- Phylum Chordata chordates
- At some stage of life: a stiffening rod along the back (notochord)
- A hollow nerve cord along the back (dorsal)
- Slits in the throat (pharyngeal slits) and a tail past the anus
- Subphylum Vertebrata vertebrates
- A skull (cranium) protecting a brain
- Backbone or similar support around the nerve cord
- Includes fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals
- Infraphylum Gnathostomata jawed vertebrates
- Jawed vertebrates: jaws formed from gill arches
- Paired fins or limbs
- Includes all fishes except hagfish and lampreys, plus all tetrapods
- Superclass Osteichthyes bony vertebrates
- Bony vertebrates: skeleton made largely of bone
- Most have a lung or swim bladder
- Includes ray-finned and lobe-finned fishes and all tetrapods
- Clade Sarcopterygii lobe-finned vertebrates
- Lobe-finned: fleshy fins with bones like those of limbs
- Includes coelacanths, lungfishes, and all tetrapods
- Clade Tetrapoda four-limbed vertebrates
- Four limbs with fingers and toes (or descended from animals that had them)
- Breathe air with lungs
- Class Reptilia reptiles (birds included)
- Scaly skin made of keratin
- Lay shelled eggs on land or carry eggs inside the body (amniotic egg)
- In modern classification this group includes birds
- Clade Archosauria crocodilians & birds
- Includes crocodilians, birds, and extinct dinosaurs and pterosaurs
- Birds and crocodilians share a four-chambered heart and a muscular gizzard
- Class Aves birds
- Birds: feathers
- Toothless beak
- Lay hard-shelled eggs; warm-blooded
- Clade Aequornithes core waterbirds
- Core waterbirds: penguins, tubenoses, gannets, pelicans, herons, and loons
- Order Procellariiformes tubenoses
- Tubenoses: nostrils in tubes on top of the beak
- Strong sense of smell for finding food at sea
- Drink seawater and excrete the salt
- Family Diomedeidae albatrosses
- Albatrosses: very long, narrow wings for gliding
- Nostril tubes on both sides of the beak
- Genus Diomedea
- Species in the same genus are very close relatives and often look alike.
- Species Diomedea exulans Wandering albatross
Closest relatives in the guide
- Great shearwater Ardenna gravis same order
- Wilson's storm petrel Oceanites oceanicus same order
- African penguin Spheniscus demersus same class
- Arctic tern Sterna paradisaea same class
- Atlantic puffin Fratercula arctica same class
- Banded sea krait Laticauda colubrina same class
- Brown pelican Pelecanus occidentalis same class
- Common eider Somateria mollissima same class