"Albatross! Albatross! Albatross!"

It has inspired Samuel Taylor Coleridge (The Rime of the Ancient Mariner) and Monty Python (the albatross sketch, quoted above), among others. Now the mighty seabird, which can glide for thousands of miles without once flapping its wings, is being studied by aeronautics engineers in a recent example of the field of biomimicry: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/09/120912-albatross-flight-airplane-design-traugott-science/