Some authorities still consider these taxa to be conspecific, such as the Clements checklist[2] and the SACC, which recognizes that a proposal is needed.

[3] The Atlantic yellow-nosed albatross was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae.

[4] Gmelin based his description on the "yellow-nosed albatross" that had been described and illustrated in 1785 by the English ornithologist John Latham from a specimen that had been collected off the coast of the Cape of Good Hope.

[5] The Atlantic yellow-nosed albatross is now one of nine species placed in the genus Thalassarche that was introduced in 1853 by the German naturalist Ludwig Reichenbach.

Salvin's albatross also has a grey head but has much broader wings, a pale bill and even narrower black borders to the underwing.

Like all albatrosses they are colonial, but unusually they will build their nests in scrubs, on top of cliffs amongst Blechnum tree ferns.

Like all mollymawks they build pedestal nests of mud, peat, feathers, and vegetation to lay their one egg in.