The great albatrosses are predominantly white in plumage as adults, with birds becoming whiter as they age.

The two royal albatrosses at all ages and the larger, older male snowy albatrosses are totally white-bodied, while adult females and younger animals of the other species have dark pencilling marks on the edges of their feathers.

The recently discovered Amsterdam albatross retains the dark brown plumage of juvenile birds into adulthood.

The genus Diomedea was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae.

[4] The type species was designated as the snowy albatross (Diomedea exulans) by George Robert Gray in 1840.