A 68-year-old albatross just laid an egg
The oldest known wild bird in the world has laid yet another egg, NPR reports.
Wisdom, a Laysan albatross who researchers estimate is at least 68 years old, has laid almost 40 eggs, and she returns to the Midway Atoll refuge to nest year after year. She has mated with another bird, Akeakamai, and laid an egg each year since 2006, later living through a tsunami and flying an estimated total of more than three million miles.
Scientists didn't even know Laysan albatrosses could live past the age of 40 before Wisdom, who was first banded in 1956, the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge says. She has been closely watched by researchers and has taught them quite a bit about her species, per The Guardian, which notes that Laysan albatrosses don't typically breed every year without taking a break, especially not into such advanced age. In that way, she "does seem to be exceptional," one wildlife biologist observed.
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