The Key to Scientific Names
- albatrus
German Albatros albatross (Phoebastria).
- Albatrus
(Diomedeidae; syn. Diomedea † Wandering Albatross D. exulans) French Albatros albatross; Albatross and its European equivalents are the definitive spellings of a word that has undergone dramatic corruption since its birth in the Arabic name al qadus for the leathern bucket used in irrigation. This name early Spanish and Portuguese explorers adopted as “Alcatras” or “Alcaduz” and gave to the pelican Pelecanus, with reference to its capacious bill. The name was mistakenly identified and applied vaguely to other large water-birds, firstly by English navigators to the frigatebirds Fregata and finally, via Alcatraza, Alcatraze, Algatross, and Albitross, to the present species of this family (cf. “The name is thought to derive from the Portuguese word alcatraz, meaning pelican (itself a corruption of the Arabic al-gattas, meaning diver or plunger)” (Moore 2006)); "Cruribus circa corpus medium & extra abdomen positis, Corpore brevioribus: Digitis tribus anticis, membranis inter se connexis, digito postico nullo: rostro lateraliter compresso; apice mandibulæ superioris adunco, inferioris quasi truncato. . . .Albatrus. Genus 98. ... Genus Albatri. Genre de l'Albatros" (Brisson 1760): based on "Vaisseau de Guerre" of Albin 1731-1738 (?= Fregata), "Plautus Albatrus" of Klein 1750, "Albatross" of Edwards 1751, and Diomedea exulans Linnaeus, 1758; "Albatrus Brisson, Orn., 1, p. 54; 6, p. 126, 1760—type, by monotypy, "Albatrus" Brisson = Diomedea exulans Linnaeus." (Hellmayr and Conover, 1948, Cat. Birds Americas, Pt. I (2), p. 41).
- Nealbatrus
(Diomedeidae; syn. Thalassarche † Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross T. chlororhynchos) Gr. νεος neos new; genus Albatrus Brisson 1760, albatross; "The bill of the first-named [T. chlororhynchos] is longer and narrower than that of the second [T. chrysostoma], but the peculiar reduction of the culminicorn at its posterior end to a sharp point, distinctly and widely separated from the frontal feathering by the fleshy membrane extending upon it, renders its identification easy. In addition, the base of the lower mandible approaches a more perfect line than the other members, and in this resembles Phœbastria. I would consider it subgenerically separable from Thalassogeron (s. str.), and propose for this form the subgeneric name NEALBATRUS, with type the only species Th. chlororhynchos (Gm.)" (Mathews 1912); "Nealbatrus Mathews, Birds Austr. vol. ii. pt. 3, p. 274, Sept. 20th, 1912. Type (by original designation): Diomedea chlororhynchos Gmelin." (Mathews, 1927, Syst. Av. Austral., I, p. 130).
