World’s Oldest Bird Is Still Looking for Love

The world’s oldest bird, a Laysan albatross named Wisdom, is still strutting her stuff after more than 70 years on Midway Atoll. She has outlived the average life expectancy of seabirds of her kind by a couple decades.

“Each year, millions of seabirds return to Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the North Pacific Ocean to nest and raise their young,” the US Fish and Wildlife Service writes on Facebook. “Wisdom, specifically, has been doing this since the Eisenhower administration.”

Wisdom was banded by a US Geological Survey researcher in 1956 and, because she was observed rearing a new chick later that year, she was estimated to be at least five years old at the time. Her band number “Z333” has been spotted by researchers ever since.

The Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis) tends to mate for life. Wisdom’s longtime mate, Akeakamai, age unknown, had been with her for years, but he hasn’t been seen for the past two mating seasons. (Akeakamai is Hawaiian for “lover of wisdom.”) Wisdom is available, apparently, and she has been spotted canoodling with other suitors in mating dances.

“She was still actively courting other birds in March,” Jonathan Plissner, supervisory wildlife biologist at the national wildlife refuge, tells the USFWS. If she hooks up with a new guy, she might lay a single egg sometime in early December. Plissner says Wisdom has produced around 50-60 eggs in her long lifetime, bringing as many as 30 chicks into the world to pass down her indomitable genes.

At this point Wisdom has certainly outlived some of her children and grandchildren. No reason to stop now.

Photo credit: Jon Plissner /  USFWS via Facebook