The sooty albatross belongs to the genus Phoebetria of which there are two species: P. palpebrata (Foster, 1785) and P. fusca (Hilsenberg, 1822).

[5] Diomedeidae is a part of the order Procellariiformes which are tube-nosed seabirds including shearwaters, fulmars, petrels, and of course albatrosses.

Plumage ranges from a sooty-brown to a sooty-black color depending on the individual, but the head and sometimes tail are typically darker than the rest of the body.

On the lower jaw, a yellow to orange line is present on the beak, which is otherwise a uniform glossy black.

Although cephalopods consistently make up the bulk of their diet, the proportion of each constituent varies with location of feeding, relative abundance of prey, and time of year.

[11] This is because the mating season spans from June of one year to May of the next and, unlike other albatrosses, they do not participate in replacement laying.

[11] These birds, like many other albatross species, build life-long partnerships [7] and often return to the exact same location each mating season.

Parents will brood their chicks for roughly three months, taking turns incubating and hunting, before departing.

Natural forces include the predation of chicks by giant petrels and mice on islands, infectious diseases such as avian cholera, and the disturbance of breeding grounds by introduced animals and fires.

Similar to almost all (if not all) seabirds and marine species, the sooty albatross is affected by pollution of plastics, oils, and chemicals.

Scientists propose that frequent population surveys are conducted at breeding sites, and that the correlation between foraging areas and long-line fisheries is further examined.