I think more interesting is that it, and presumably many others, survived so long in the wild of all places. Many species are known to have significantly extended lifespans in captivity compared to the wild, so that alone isn't unusual. What is is that in all that time, the bird has avoided sickness and disease, predation, other natural perils, as well as man-made perils (according to Wikipedia, major man-made threats for the species are fishing, plastic pollution, lead poisoning, and introduced species), and so on. The bird is going on 70 and has never had access to modern healthcare - something unthinkable for modern society.
Albatrosses have a unique adaptation (dynamic soaring) that allows them to live most of their lives on the open ocean. They don't face many predators or even humans out there. Interestingly enough, global warming is actually helping albatrosses, as increased temperatures lead to increased wind speeds, allowing them to expand their range.
>>Interestingly enough, global warming is actually helping albatrosses
This will always be the case whenever there are some extreme changes to the environment. Some species will thrive and some will go extinct. The Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) extinction event exterminated three quarters of all life. We are descendants of those mammals that made it through.
I remember reading somewhere that had it not been for that extinction event we probably would not be here. Don't know if it's true.
Just a small token of appreciation for explicitly qualifying this as 'known' superlative. One of my pet peeves anytime there's a headline discussing the -est of anything.
"Eye tissue analysis presented a probability range suggesting that the sharks were at least 272 years old, and could potentially be as much as 512 years old,"
