page_title: Wandering albatross
section_title: Taxonomy
hierarchical_section_title: Wandering albatross / Taxonomy
caption_attribution_description: Wandering Albatross (Diomedea exulans) in flight, East of the Tasman Peninsula, Tasmania, Australia
context_page_description: The wandering albatross, snowy albatross, white-winged albatross or goonie is a large seabird from the family Diomedeidae, which has a circumpolar range in the Southern Ocean. It was the last species of albatross to be described, and was long considered the same species as the Tristan albatross and the Antipodean albatross. A few authors still consider them all subspecies of the same species. The SACC has a proposal on the table to split this species, and BirdLife International has already split it. Together with the Amsterdam albatross, it forms the wandering albatross species complex. The wandering albatross is one of the two largest members of the genus Diomedea, being similar in size to the southern royal albatross. It is one of the largest, best known, and most studied species of bird in the world, with it possessing the greatest known wingspan of any living bird. This is also one of the most far ranging birds. Some individual wandering albatrosses are known to circumnavigate the Southern Ocean three times, covering more than 120,000 km, in one year.
context_section_description: The wandering albatross was first described as Diomedea exulans by Carl Linnaeus, in 1758, based on a specimen from the Cape of Good Hope. Diomedea refers to Diomedes whose companions turned to birds, and exulans or exsul are Latin for "exile" or "wanderer" referring to its extensive flights. The type locality has been restricted to South Georgia.
  Some experts considered there to be four subspecies of D. exulans, which they elevated to species status, and use the term wandering albatross to refer to a species complex that includes the proposed species D. antipodensis, D. dabbenena, D. exulans, and D. gibsoni.
caption: In flight
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