Wisdom, the world’s oldest known wild bird, has laid an egg, this time with a new partner.
She is a Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis), or mōlī in Hawaiian, and this is her first egg in four years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Pacific region said in a statement on X.
“She did it again!” the agency wrote.
Wisdom is thought to be around 74 years old. Researchers roughly know her age because they attached an identifying band numbered Z333 on her leg in 1956. She had already laid an egg then, suggesting she was mature and at least 5 years old at the time.
Mōlīs like Wisdom spend months at sea before returning to their nesting sites on land. Most of the birds, including Wisdom, nest in Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge located within Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in the North Pacific.
At these nesting sites, the albatrosses meet their mates, whom they tend to partner with for life. If the courtship and mating is successful, the female lays a single egg, then both parents take turns incubating it and raise the chick over the next seven months or so. Since the process is extremely energy-intensive, it’s not uncommon for Laysan albatross pairs to skip a year or two between laying eggs, research suggests.
USFWS Pacific said Wisdom has likely “produced 50-60 eggs and as many as 30 chicks that fledged in her lifetime.”
For more than a decade, Wisdom was spotted with her partner named Akeakamai, but the male albatross hasn’t appeared at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge since 2021.
In December 2023, Jon Plissner, USFWS supervisory wildlife biologist at Midway, saw Wisdom engaged in mating dances. “She was still actively courting other birds in March [2024],” he wrote.
The egg that Wisdom laid recently, her first in four years, is “a special joy,” Plissner said.
“We are optimistic that the egg will hatch,” he added. Researchers have now banded her new mate to make future identification easy.
The Laysan albatross is classified as near threatened on the IUCN Red List. Historically the bird’s populations suffered great declines from feather and egg collection, and entanglement in driftnets meant for squid and salmon. Marine plastic is one of their biggest current threats. Studies suggest that the albatrosses “commonly ingest large amounts of plastic, which is in turn fed to their chicks.”
Banner image of Wisdom standing over her recently laid egg. Image by USFWS – Pacific Region via Flickr (Public domain).
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