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World’s oldest known wild bird is a mother again on Midway Atoll
- hdinnie 8y agoMidway is also known as one of the places in the region most polluted with plastic garbage.
- MentallyRetired 8y agoYou can take a walking tour on Google Maps. Really neat.
- timClicks 8y agoMany of the Pacific Islands are lined with plastic bags. It's really quite sad.
- misterprime 8y agoVery cool to see the fruits of a long research project. I had no idea birds could live that long or produce offspring that long.
- Razengan 8y agoParrots can live even longer, even outlive most humans, so the title confused me too, until I noticed "wild."
- paavoova 8y agoI think more interesting is that it, and presumably many others, survived so long in the wild of all places. Many species are known to have significantly extended lifespans in captivity compared to the wild, so that alone isn't unusual. What is is that in all that time, the bird has avoided sickness and disease, predation, other natural perils, as well as man-made perils (according to Wikipedia, major man-made threats for the species are fishing, plastic pollution, lead poisoning, and introduced species), and so on. The bird is going on 70 and has never had access to modern healthcare - something unthinkable for modern society.
- ModernMech 8y agoAlbatrosses have a unique adaptation (dynamic soaring) that allows them to live most of their lives on the open ocean. They don't face many predators or even humans out there. Interestingly enough, global warming is actually helping albatrosses, as increased temperatures lead to increased wind speeds, allowing them to expand their range.
- felipemnoa 8y ago>>Interestingly enough, global warming is actually helping albatrosses This will always be the case whenever there are some extreme changes to the environment. Some species will thrive and some will go extinct. The Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) extinction event exterminated three quarters of all life. We are descendants of those mammals that made it through. I remember reading somewhere that had it not been for that extinction event we probably would not be here. Don't know if it's true.
- DrAwdeOccarim 8y agoIt probably is true. If it weren't true, there would be something very peculiar about the universe.
- jcims 8y agoJust a small token of appreciation for explicitly qualifying this as 'known' superlative. One of my pet peeves anytime there's a headline discussing the -est of anything.
- heyjudy 8y agoAnthropocentrism isn't big on humility, but is on being "first" or whatever-est, as if that changed anything. I guess it's purely a game.
- MentallyRetired 8y agoMy father's entire life fit inside of this bird's life. He was born after her and died before her. That's insane.
- jcims 8y agoSame, and my old man died 21 years ago. We’re so used to the opposite that it’s strange when they outlive us.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Bayart 8y agoThe oldest tortoise around was born during the Industrial Revolution.
- trhway 8y agohttps://www.livescience.com/61210-shark-not-512-years-old.html https://www.livescience.com/61210-shark-not-512-years-old.ht... "Eye tissue analysis presented a probability range suggesting that the sharks were at least 272 years old, and could potentially be as much as 512 years old,"
- Razengan 8y agoThe oldest trees began life before some of our intact civilizations today.
- petermcneeley 8y agoIf these birds mate for life then isnt the mate ~ the same age? Or is this a until death do us part situation?
- cowmix 8y agoUntil death.
- mothsonasloth 8y agoTwas right, said they, such birds to slay, That bring the fog and mist
- TheTruth321 8y agoMazel Tov!