Leach's Storm Petrel - Ecology

Ecology

Lifespan for this bird is unusually long for a bird of such rather small size, with an average of 20 years and a maximum recorded lifespan of 36 years. In 2003, Haussmann et al. found that the bird's telomeres lengthen with age, the only known example to date of such a phenomenon. It is rather likely, however, that this phenomenon also occurs in other members of the Procellariiformes, which all have a rather long lifespan compared to their size.

They feed primarily on plankton, including euphausiids, copeopods, and a form of amphipod that are parasitic to jellyfish gonadal pouches. They also feed to a large extent on myctophids (lantern fish) which only occur at the surface at night in water over the continental slope. Individuals have been observed to feed at distances up to 300 km from any known breeding colony. Breeding individuals store energy rich lipids in a sac anterior to their stomach which are used to either sustain themselves while incubating their single egg, to feed their chick, or can also be used as a defensive mechanism when caught by a predator as do many other Procellariformes. There is evidence showing that parents feed their chicks different prey species than they consume themselves. Chicks grow to a prefledging weight almost double of that when they actually fledge from the burrow in late September. Fall storms can cause these young fledging individuals to wreck on the mainland.