With the similar look like they have as a gaint seagull you wouldn’t believe the great albatrosses are the widest living birds in the world. However these birds are more than twice as wide in comparison with the largest seagulls.
Wandering and southern royal albatross
There are two species of albatrosses with the same size. The first one is the snowy albatross, also called wandering albatross. The second is the southern royal albatross.They can reach a width up to 3.5 meters from tip to tip. The average wingspan is with 3 meters lower. Which is still impressive.
Benefits of big wings
The albatross lives almost his whole life above the sea. Without moving the wings the bird glides with his big wings through the sky like a glider. Staying in the air costs almost no effort, so it can even eat and sleep in flight.
In comparison with human things
The wingspan is almost as large as the lenght of a Kia Picanto (3.6 meter)!
Is the albatross the largest bird?
The royal southern and wandering albatrosses have the widest wingspan of all living birds. The length and weight of these birds are pretty high too. Male wandering and royal southern albatrosses can have a lenght of 135 cm with a weight of 12 kg. There are small differences in average weight and lenght between the two species.
There are overall larger, heavier and taller birds than these two albatross species. We will find out which they are in futher posts!