Endangered
Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross
Thalassarche carteri
The Indian yellow-nosed albatross is a member of the albatross family, and is the smallest of the mollymawks.
Appearance
The Indian yellow-nosed albatross weighs 2.55 kg (5.6 lb), is 76 cm (30 in) long and is 2 m (6.6 ft) across the wings. The adult has a pale grey or white head and nape, with a dark grey mantle, upperwing, and tail. Its rump and underparts are white, and its underwing is white with a black tip with a narrow black margin at the leading edge.
The Indian yellow-nosed albatross is a member of the albatross family, and is the smallest of the mollymawks.
Published measurements include mass about 2.71.
Range and habitat
It breeds on Prince Edward Islands, the Crozet Islands, Kerguelen Island, Amsterdam Island (on the Falaises d'Entrecasteaux) and St Paul Islands in the Indian Ocean. At sea it ranges from South Africa to the Pacific Ocean just beyond New Zealand, ranging from 30° S to 50° S.
This is based on earlier counts as follows: 27,000 breeding pairs breed on Amsterdam Island, and 7,500 pair on Prince Edward Island, 7,030 on Crozet Island, 50 on Kerguelen Island, and 3 pair on St. Paul Island for a total of 41,580 pair or 83,000 mature individuals.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
Like all albatrosses, the Indian yellow-nosed albatross is a colonial breeder. It breeds annually, and the adults begin breeding at the age of eight years.
A mud nest is built in bare rocky areas or in tussock grass or ferns, and a single egg is laid.
In crisis
It is considered to be an endangered species by the IUCN, due to dramatic declines in the last seventy years, caused by interactions with longline fisheries and the outbreak of introduced diseases, such as avian cholera and Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae. A 2004 population estimate established that around a total of 65,000 adult birds are alive. A vaccination has been developed but remains untested.
Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross, Wikidata item Q2101643. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
