Talk:Southern royal albatross

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) Can someone confirm the 7.63m figure in the first paragraph of the article? It seems like an unlikely number. Davidlwilliamson (talk) 07:12, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, lacking input, I'm going to remove that, since the only reference I can find is nearly verbatim on one other non-scientific website. Feel free to correct me if an appropriate reference can be found. Davidlwilliamson (talk) 08:15, 19 January 2008 (UTC)