A seabird banded in 1956 was laying eggs again in 2024

In 1956 the American ornithologist Chandler Robbins was banding seabirds on Midway Atoll, in the Pacific. One was a female Laysan albatross. Her band carried the number Z333.

She was breeding, and Laysan albatrosses do not breed before the age of five. So she was estimated to be at least five, which means she hatched in the 1950 to 1951 breeding season at the latest. Every age given for her since is a minimum.

Banding is how scientists learn how long individual birds live and where they travel. She kept coming back to Midway, and the U.S. Geological Survey has tracked her since 1956. It estimates that she has flown more than 3 million miles. Her band has had to be replaced six times. In 2006 John Klavitter, a Fish and Wildlife Service biologist on Midway, was replacing it when he gave her a name: Wisdom.

Laysan albatrosses lay one egg a year and usually keep one mate for life. From 2006 Wisdom came back each season with the same mate, Akeakamai. She raised a chick in 2016, at about 66, and another hatched on February 1, 2021, when she was at least 70.

That November Akeakamai did not come back, and she did not breed. She kept returning to Midway without him. In March 2024 Ann Bell, of the group Friends of Midway Atoll, said it seemed "highly unlikely" that Wisdom would find another mate.

In November 2024 Wisdom was back with a new mate, a male banded EX25, and she laid an egg. She was at least 73, the oldest bird known to have laid one. The chick hatched on January 30, 2025.

Chandler Robbins banded more than 190,000 birds of over 300 species in his career. He died in 2017, at 98. On November 26, 2025, Wisdom and EX25 were together on Midway again.