That All Black penguin

[Colin Miskelly]

The white ring is of small feathers. Intriguingly, it appears that most (all?) melanistic penguins retain their normal head plumage colouring, now seen in king, gentoo, Adelie and an indeterminate crested penguin...

The most famous (or infamous) melanistic penguin was a crested penguin collected on The Snares in 1874. Initially described by Frederick Hutton, Otto Finsch then published Hutton’s manuscript description under the name Eudyptes atrata (later changed to Eudyptes atratus) in 1875. Buller illustrated the bird in his second edition Birds of New Zealand (1888), and the image was reproduced on p.239 of Graham Turbott’s 1967 book Buller’s Birds of New Zealand.

Eudyptes atratus was for many years used as the scientific name for Snares crested penguin (now E. robustus). Oliver (1953 & 1955) argued that Hutton’s description and Keulemans’ painting showed the bird to be an erect-crested penguin (which stray to The Snares), based on bill and crest characteristics. He therefore used E. atratus for erect-crested penguin (now E. sclateri). In 1976 the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature determined that the specific identity of the black penguin specimen could not be determined, and added E. atratus to the Official List of Rejected and Invalid Species Names in Zoology.

The riddle could not be solved because the specimen was lost in a shipwreck on its return to New Zealand after being painted by Keulemans.

Colin Miskelly

[Brent Stephenson]

Melanistic, partial albino, and leucistic penguins are found relatively frequently, probably mainly because they stick out like sore thumbs! But almost every year cruise ships to the Antarctic Peninsula find penguins like this. This reporter has just done a good job of getting it publicised. It would appear that he is a National Geographic staff member, possibly with a National Geographic charter group onboard the cruise ship, and hence used contacts to get exposure, thereby getting a bit of advertising for them also, not silly!

The photo below is of a leucistic gentoo I photographed at Neko Harbour on the Antarctic Peninsula in late 2007. In this individual the dark melanin pigment has been replaced, but the outline of where the plumage should be black is still apparent. I don't know that it is necessarily true that all melanistic individuals show white spots either, I think it is all a bit of media hype...hybrid with a little blue...the planet certainly isn't earth Neil!

030795_071231.jpg (122.97 KiB) Viewed 1788 times

Cheers,