Laysan Albatross Employs ‘Dual Mommies’

What’s a girl to do if there’s a shortage of males and she needs help raising a family? The Laysan albatross employs a strategy called reciprocity, where unrelated females pair together and take turns raising offspring.

On the island of Oahu, in Hawaii, 31% of nests are female-female pairs. Female pairs raise fewer chicks than male-female pairs, but given the shortage of males, fewer chicks are better than none. Since albatross can only raise one chick each year, females stay together for multiple years for each to reproduce. This unusual strategy may explain why Laysan Albatross are successfully re-colonizing islands.

Unrelated same-sex individuals pairing together and cooperating to raise offspring over many years is a rare occurrence in the animal kingdom. Cooperative breeding, in which animals help raise offspring that are not their own, is often attributed to kin selection when individuals are related, or altruism when individuals are unrelated.

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Tagged as: Albatross, Animals, Birds, Cooperative Breeding, Hawaii, Laysan Albatross, Oahu, Reciprocity