Field identification and sex determination of the royal albatross

Royal albatrosses have black eyelids, white body plumage in all ages, longer bill and more rounded, protruding nose-tubes than the wandering albatross, which has pale greenish, bluish, pink or white eyelids. In flight, royal albatrosses often have the outer hands bent slightly backwards while wanderers usually form a near-perfect cross. The southern royal albatross (Diomedea epomophora epomophora) of Campbell Island is the larger and characterised by its white wing-patch: the smaller northern form (Diomedea epomophora sanfordi) has pure black wings. In the southern royal albatross males have usually appreciably more white on the wings than females: they are also a little bigger, with longer bills: length of middle toe nail in females is less than 24 mm., in males 24 mm. or more.