Magellanic Penguin

Magellanic Penguin
: Animalia : Chordata : Aves : Sphenisciformes : Spheniscidae : Spheniscus : magellanicus
Binomial name
Spheniscus magellanicus (Forster, 1781)

The Magellanic penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) is a South American penguin, breeding in coastal Argentina, Chile and the Falkland Islands, with some migrating to Brazil. It is the most numerous of the Spheniscus penguins. Its nearest relatives are the African Penguin, the Humboldt Penguin and the Galapagos Penguin.

Magellanic Penguins are medium-sized, black and white penguins, growing to 76 cm tall. They have a black head with a broad white border running from behind the eye, around the black ear-coverts and chin, to join on the throat. They have blackish-grey upperparts and whitish underparts, with two black bands between the head and the breast, the lower in an inverted horseshoe shape.

They feed on fish, squid, krill, and other crustaceans.

The main threat to this species is oil pollution which kills more than 20,000 adults and 22,000 juveniles every year off the coast of Argentina.

External link

• Magellanic penguins from the International Penguin Conservation Web Site