Galapagos albatross
| Galapagos albatross | ||||||||||
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Galapagos albatrosses ( Phoebastria irrorata ) at courtship |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||
| Phoebastria irrorata | ||||||||||
| ( Salvin , 1883) |
The Galapagos albatross ( Phoebastria irrorata ) is the only species from the albatross family that occurs in the tropics. It only breeds on Española Island in the Galapagos Archipelago, in a volcanic landscape with boulders and sparse vegetation. Outside the breeding season, the bird can be found off the coast of Peru and Ecuador .
features
The Galapagos albatross reaches a body length of 89 cm and a weight of around 2 kg, the wingspan is 230–240 cm. The head is predominantly colored white, with a yellowish skull and neck. The chin, throat and chest are also marked in white and gray vermicular, especially the sides of the chest and the flanks. The belly is chocolate brown. The upper side is chestnut brown, with a grayish vermicular pattern on the neck, rump and upper tail-coverts, the lower rump with a pale spot and vermicular pattern contrasts with the chocolate-brown tail. The upper side of the wings is chocolate brown with no markings, the shaft of the hand wings is clearly yellowish-white. The under tail is chocolate brown. The undersides of the wings are dark at the edges and white in the center. The under wing coverts are also white.
The large beak is yellowish, the eyes dark brown. The legs and feet are pale blue.
Habitat and way of life
Galapagos albatrosses breed on the southeastern Galápagos island of Española , and a few pairs also breed on the Isla de la Plata off the province of Manabí, Ecuador . The species breeds every year, it nests on sparsely overgrown lava terrain surrounded by rocks, and more recently in denser bushes. The breeding colonies are visited at the end of March and the eggs are laid from mid-April to late June. The young fledglings from late December to early January, they reach sexual maturity after 4–6 years.
Their diet consists of fish, octopus, and crustaceans. Studies have shown that they also eat gagged food from other species in a kleptoparasitic manner , and it appears that they are scavengers , at least temporarily . During the breeding season, food is sought in Peruvian waters where deep water rises. Outside the breeding season in the east and south-east, in the waters of the Ecuadorian and Peruvian continental shelf.
Protection and exposure
In the breeding area, the Galapagos albatross is protected by national park staff. Nevertheless, there is a risk from tourism, disease and illegal fishing in nearby waters. The very small population on Isla de la Plata is threatened by nest robbers, rats and cats, as well as by the illegal collection of eggs and young animals. The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) has classified the species as critically endangered (CR) due to its extremely small breeding area, which is essentially limited to an island and due to signs of a decline in the population . In 2010 the total stock was 34,700 copies.
literature
- McQuilken, J. The Mists of Time . Spitzbergen.de, Nov. 2012. p. 21
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Derek Onley, Paul Scofield: Albatrosses, Petrels and Shearwaters of the World. Christopher Helm, 2007, ISBN 978-0713643329 , pp. 129-130.
- ↑ a b c d Phoebastria irrorata in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2011.2. Listed by: BirdLife International, 2010. Retrieved February 12, 2012.
- ↑ AJ Bester, D. Priddel, NI Klomp, Diet and foraging behavior of the Providence Petrel Pterodroma solandri. 2010 In: Marine Ornithology 39, p. 169. ( Online ; PDF file; 169 kB)
- ^ Godfrey Merlen: Scavenging behavior of the waved albatross in Galápagos: a potential problem with increasing longlining? 1988 In: Noticias de Galápagos 59, p. 22 ( Online ; PDF file; 2.4 MB)
- ↑ James McQuilken: The Mists of Time . Ed .: Rolf Stange. 1st edition. Spitzbergen.de, Dassow 2012, ISBN 978-3-937903-15-6 , Kp. "Current development of populations and threats", p. 137 .
Web links
- Videos, photos and sound recordings of Waved Albatross (Diomedea irrorata) in the Internet Bird Collection