Oldest bird is new mom
Here's one new momma with lots of experience — at to the lowest degree 62 years of information technology. On February 3, a Laysan albatross named Wisdom hatched a sensible chick along a Pacific island near Aloha State. Information technology was the 6th class in a row this bird had hatched a chick.
Symmetric though women may live to equal 100 years old or more, few are capable of birth after their proto to mid-50s. What makes Wisdom so special is that her species usually lives only 12 to 40 years. So not only has she outlived most other Laysan albatrosses by at least 2 decades, but also she has remained fertile and able to dream up healthy chicks into her 60s.
How do scientists know her age? To track a wild razzing, biologists often wrap a long-lasting, numbered argentiferous band around united of its legs. Scientists can so realize a particular dame every time its band comes into sentiment. No indefinite knows Wisdom's exact age, but Chandler Robbins first banded her wooden leg in 1956. At the metre, this biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimated that she was already at least 5 years old. The intellect: She had been incubating an egg, and females of this species must be at to the lowest degree 5 eld old to breed. Since then, this mom has worn out five bands. Scientists replaced to each one just before information technology was primed to fall off.
At one time arrival breeding age, Wisdom and her kin return to each one November to a tiny Pacific island to breed. A antheral and female bequeath partner for liveliness. Wisdom is thusly old, however, that biologists suspect she has outlived her first mate.
At breeding time, the Laysan albatross will scratch out a shallow nest in the ground. A female person then lays a single egg. Both she and her mate will alternate incubating the testicle until it hatches. More than seven out of every 10 Laysan albatrosses nest on just one and only island — Midway Atoll. That's Wisdom's home.
Merely her species spends most of its time in the air. In fact, biologists observe that after learning to fly, these birds whitethorn non set foot on land for the next three to five years.
Wisdom has done plenty more flying since she was first patterned. Albatrosses are powerful gliders. With their 6-foot (almost 2-meter) wingspan, Laysan albatrosses can angle their wide wings and ride wind currents for hundreds of miles or Thomas More. Biologists with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Serve forthwith estimate Wisdom has racked up an unusually large number of frequent-flier miles — between two 1000000 and three million. That's equivalent to traveling from Earth to the moon and back — quaternion to sixfold! And in the months these birds are non breeding, they stay in the air, even quiescence there.
Raving albatrosses often die lengthy before they come imminent to Wisdom's age. Some are eaten. Others starve, get sick or suffer severe injuries from the gear utilized aside fishing boats. Keeping give chase of such long-lasting birds offers scientists an opportunity to con untold nigh how these animals reproduce, especially late in life. Since she was first banded, Wisdom may have reared as many Eastern Samoa 35 chicks. Clearly, she is extra and raising the relegate for albatross motherhood.
Wisdom is the oldest barbarian bird best-known in the 90-class chronicle of the U.S. and Canadian birdbanding computer programme. Bruce Peterjohn is the principal of that program. He works at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Explore Center in Laurel, Free State. "To know that she can still with success enkindle young at geezerhoo 60-asset is astonishing," exclaims Peterjohn.
Power Words
albatross A typewrite of large seabird with webbed feet and slender wings. Albatrosses are powerful gliders and expend most of their lives complete the ocean, scooping up Pisces the Fishes and calamari from the water system's surface.
atoll A ring-molded island formed from a precious coral reef that surrounds a lagoon.
breed To produce issue through facts of life.
fertile Old enough and able to reproduce.
cover Sitting on eggs to hold back them at the right temperature until they hatch.
0 Response to "Oldest bird is new mom"
Post a Comment