In the past couple of photos, I have mentioned the 'new taxonomy' and 'old taxonomy', but I think I had better explain what they are.
The 'old taxonomy' was the traditional one, gradually built up since albatrosses were discovered. This included species like Wandering, Royal, Black-browed, Yellow-nosed etc. Most of the slightly older field guides to Australian birds still adopted that approach.
However, during the mid 1990's, with the rise of DNA analysis and other methods, the 14 species of albatross were split (by some individuals) into as many as 25 species of albatross: basically all the subspecies had been made into full species.
Africa (entire continent rather than south of Sahara)
AN
Antarctica
AO
Atlantic Ocean
AU
Australasia (Wallacea (Indonesian islands east of Wallace's line), New Guinea and its islands, Australia, New Zealand and its subantarctic islands, the Solomons, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu)
PAL
Eurasia (Europe, Asia from the Middle East through central Asia north of the Himalayas, Siberia and northern China to Japan)
IO
Indian Ocean
LA
Latin America (Middle and South America)
MA
Middle America (Mexico through Panama)
NA
North America (includes the Caribbean)
NO
Northern oceans
OR
Oriental Region (South Asia from Pakistan to Taiwan, plus Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and Greater Sundas)
