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The albatross as a superstitious relic is referenced in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's well-known 1798 poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It is considered very unlucky to kill an albatross; in Coleridge's poem, the narrator killed the bird and his fellow sailors eventually force him to wear the dead bird around his neck.
Japanese mythology, by contrast, refers to the short-tailed albatross as ahodori, "fool bird", due to its habit of disregarding terrestrial predators, making it easy prey for feather collectors. [ 53 ]
However, the titular mariner shoots the albatross with a crossbow, an act that will curse the ship and cause it to suffer terrible mishaps. Unable to speak due to lack of water, the ship's crew let the mariner know through their glances that they blame him for their plight and they tie the bird around his neck as a sign of his guilt.
Despite having a six-foot wingspan, its actually on the smaller side for an albatross, and is famous for being the species that boasts the world’s oldest known wild bird, Wisdom, who has been ...
The world’s oldest known wild bird has sparked “special joy” among scientists after she laid an egg – her first in four years – at the age of 74. Wisdom, a Laysan albatross, was spotted ...
The word “albatross” has multiple meanings and can refer to either an oceanic bird (often residing in Australia, where Swift made her announcement), a source of frustration and guilt or a ...
"The Albatross about my Neck was Hung", etching by William Strang, published 1896. The sailors change their minds again and blame the mariner for the torment of their thirst. In anger, the crew forces the mariner to wear the dead albatross about his neck, perhaps to illustrate the burden he must suffer from killing it, or perhaps as a sign of ...
Wisdom (officially designated #Z333) is a wild female Laysan albatross, the oldest confirmed wild bird in the world and the oldest banded bird in the world. [1] First tagged in 1956 at Midway by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), she was still incubating eggs as late as 2024 and has received international media coverage in her lifetime.