Talk:Southern Royal Albatross

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WikiProject Birds To-do: edit MAJOR taxonomic overhaul (see here) Create Galloanserae For new cat: Category:Natural history of the Americas, replace "Hummingbird" article (by Some collaboration, hopefully) an artcle: along title LINE of: Hummingbirds--the bird of the Americas

Scientific classification

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Aves

Order: Procellariiformes

Family: Diomedeidae

Genus: Diomedea

Species: D. epomophora

Binomial name

Diomedea epomophora Lesson, 1785

The Southern Royal Albatross, Diomedea epomophora, is a large seabird from the albatross family. It was once considered conspecific with the Northern Royal Albatross (Diomedea sanfordi) as the Royal Albatross and the split into two species is not universally accepted. The two species can be separated at sea by the plumage of the wing on adults, the Southern Royal Albatross having large areas of white going down the wings, as opposed to the Northern, which has entirely black wings. They are the whitest of all the albatrosses, with black wing tips. Their legs are flesh coloured, and their bill is pink with black edging. The majority of the world's population of Southern Royal Albatrosses nest on Campbell Island, around 13,000 pairs. There are smaller colonies in the Auckland Islands, and some sanfordi X epomophora hybrids at the Northern Royal Albatross colony on the Otago Peninsula in New Zealand.

f69.142.202.79 02:56, 2 March 2007 (UTC)