The short-tailed albatross or Steller's albatross is a large rare seabird from the North Pacific. Although related to the other North Pacific albatrosses, it also exhibits behavioural and morphological links to the albatrosses of the Southern Ocean. It was described by the German naturalist Peter Simon Pallas from skins collected by Georg Wilhelm Steller. Once common, it was brought to the edge of extinction by the trade in feathers, but with protection efforts underway since the 1950s, the species is in the process of recovering with an increasing population trend. It is divided into two distinct subpopulations, one of which breeds on Tori-shima in the Izu islands south of Japan, and the other primarily on the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.
Short-tailed albatross
A chick just before it left the Hawaiian archipelago
One of several chicks translocated to Muko-jima Island, Japan
Albatrosses, of the biological family Diomedeidae, are large seabirds related to the procellariids, storm petrels, and diving petrels in the order Procellariiformes. They range widely in the Southern Ocean and the North Pacific. They are absent from the North Atlantic, although fossil remains show they once occurred there and occasional vagrants are found. Albatrosses are among the largest of flying birds, and species of the genus Diomedea have the longest wingspans of any extant birds, reaching up to 3.7 m (12 ft). The albatrosses are usually regarded as falling into four genera, but disagreement exists over the number of species.
Albatross
Skeleton of a black-browed albatross on display at the Museum of Osteology in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S.
A southern royal albatross: Note the large, hooked beak and nasal tubes.
Taking off is the most energetically demanding part of an albatross's journey, requiring the use of flapping flight to provide thrust as well as lift.