Older than queen Lizzie? Meet the oldest birds in the world
Can birds outlive humans?
Some animals can definitely outlive humans. The longest-living animals on Earth include the Bowhead Whale with an estimated 200 years lifespan, the Rougheye Rockfish (yes, a fish!!) with an estimated maximum lifespan of 205 years, and my favourite: the immortal jellyfish! I’ll include a tiny section about the immortal jellyfish at the end of today’s article. Even though this is a blog about birds, they’re such cool animals, I have to talk about them!
But what about birds? Today, let’s explore if any birds can (or have already?) outlive Queen Elizabeth II, who, as we know, reached 96 years of age before passing on.
First up we have:
Wisdom the Albatross, a 71-year-old female bird that just recently laid hatched a chick!
At 71 years of age, Wisdom the Albatross is nowhere close to 96. However, she has accomplished a way cooler feat than simply being old: in 2021, at 70 years of age, this Laysan Albatross did something no-one has ever recorded before: she hatched a chick!
Regarded as “oldest known wild bird in history”, Wisdom has outlived several of her ex-husbands (aka her previous mating partners) as well as the very human who first banded her and began studying her life - the biologist Chandler Robbins, who first banded her in 1956, 66 whole years ago.
Wisdom’s long-term mate, Akeakamai, was the lucky bird that fathered this chick. Albatrosses are one of the most sexually monogamous species of birds in the world, and Wisdom has partnered with Akeakamai since 2010.
These birds find their mates through romantic ‘dance parties’. It is one of my life goals to be able to see them court each other through dance!
The US Fish and Wildlife Service have been following Wisdom’s long life for decades. They estimate that Wisdom has hatched over 30 chicks over the course of her lifetime - Laysan Albatrosses only nest once every two years.
Laysan Albatrosses are large seabirds that live across the North Pacific - you can find millions of these birds in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, which is home to an estimated 99.7% of the Laysan Albatross population. They get their name from the Laysan Island, an island near Honolulu, Hawaii, where the birds were first studied and described.
And, although Wisdom and Akeakamai are the very picture of a nuclear bird family, did you know that gay Laysan Albatrosses relationships have also been recorded?
Occasionally, Laysan Albatrosses form same-sex pairs consisting of two females. This has been observed in the colony on the Hawaiian island Oahu, where the sex ratio of male to female is 2 to 3. I wonder why female albatrosses outlive their male counterparts!
Anyway, 31% of all breeding pairs on that colony are between females. That’s almost 1 in 3!
Paired females can successfully breed when their eggs are fertilized by males.
This phenomenon has been useful to conservation efforts in the Hawaiian Islands, where researchers have successfully swapped unfertilised eggs from female-female pairs with fertile eggs translocated from pairs nesting on military airfields and in other unsafe nesting areas. The female-female pairs then hatch and raise the foster chicks.
Cockatoos that have lived for eight, nine, even ten decades
Cockatoos, parrots, and macaws are birds of the 21 parrot species belonging to the family Cacatuidae (from the root word Cacatua). The words for cocaktoo and Cacatua sound almost identical! Anyway, this family is made up of medium to very large parrots, who are all very smart, very cool, and very long-lived.
There are many stories of cockatoos who have reached advanced ages. The oldest ‘reported’ cockatoo was one that died at 120 years of age, in 1916. We don’t actually have any way of proving if this bird lived for twelve decades, though.
But, we do have a properly recorded instance of a Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo that lived to be 83 years old - he passed away in 2016 at his home in the zoo in Chicago.
He had a known, and properly recorded, birthdate of June 30, 1933, and lived until August 27, 2016. This cockatoo lived through World War II, the 9/11 terrorist attack and even the invention of the colour television in 1940! (Can you believe he used to watch black & white TV as a baby cockatoo?)
He even outlived floppy discs, which were introduced in 1971 and was made obsolete around 2010! Cool stuff.
The Major Mitchell’s cockatoo lives in pairs, near the water. A high-maintenance bird, this cockatoo likes to interact with its owner or caregivers. They bond to their human keepers and become very temperamental when their human is not around.
The bird will show signs of being jealous when their humans pay attention to others more than it. They have been known to nip at the person taking attention away from them. They can be taught tricks like dancing, they whistle or mimic words. If their humans are away for a long period, such as a vacation, they may display forms of self-mutilation as they feel neglected.
Older than the late queen: Fred the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo
Meet the one bird who has outlived the late Queen: Fred, the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo! (He’s even received a letter and birthday cake from the Queen herself!)
Fred is believed to be over 100 years old. In November 1, 2014, the bird celebrated his 100th birthday in Bonogrong Wildlife Sanctuary, in Tasmania. It was then that he received a birthday cake and letter from Buckingham Palace.
Technically, Fred’s exact precise age isn’t known as he had lived in captivity in several locations across his life. Unlike our previous bird, his exact birthdate was not recorded, either. But also, the story of the cockatoo that lived til 120 was also of a Sulphur-crested one, so it seems this species really can just live for a long, long time.
And lastly! About the immortal jellyfish
Turritopsis dohrnii are called immortal jellyfish because they can potentially live forever. Jellyfish start life as larvae, before establishing themselves on the seafloor and transforming into polyps. These polyps then produce free-swimming medusas, or jellyfish. These mature jellyfish are special in that they can turn back into polyps if they are physically damaged or starving, and then later return to their jellyfish state.
The jellyfish can repeat this feat of reversing their life cycle multiple times and therefore may never die of old age under the right conditions. In reality, though, these jellyfish are tiny and often eaten by other animals, thus preventing them from actually achieving immortality.