Gentoo Penguin
| Gentoo Penguin | ||||||||||||||
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| Gentoo on Petermann Island | ||||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||
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| Binomial name | ||||||||||||||
| Pygoscelis papua |
The Gentoo Penguin (Pygoscelis papua)easily recognised bywide white stripe extending likebonnet acrosstopits head. Chicks have grey backswhite fronts. Adult Gentoos reachheight7590 cm.
Two sub-speciesthis penguinrecognised: Pygoscelis papua papua andsmaller Pygoscelis papua ellsworthii.
Males have their maximum weightabout 8 kg just before moultingtheir minimum weightabout 5.5 kg just before mating. For femalesmaximum weight7.5kg just before moulting but their weight dropsbelow 5 kg when guardingchicks innest.
Gentoos breed on many sub-Antarctic Islands. The main coloniesonFalkland Islands, South GeorgiaKerguelen Islands; smaller populationsfound on Macquarie Island, Heard Islands, South Shetland Islands andAntarctic Peninsula. The total breeding populationestimatedbe over 300,000 pairs.
Nestsusually made fromroughly circular pilestonescan be quite large, 20 cm high25 cmdiameter. Two eggslaid, both weighing around 130 g. The parents share incubation changing duty daily. The eggs hatch after 3436 days. The chicks remain innestsabout 30 days before forming creches. The chicks moult into sub-adult plumagego outsea at about 80100 days.
Gentoo penguinsopportunistic feeders,aroundFalklandsknowntake roughly equal proportionsfish (Patagonotothen sp., Thysanopsetta naresi, Micromesistius australis), crustaceans (Munida gregaria)squid (Loligo gahi, Gonatus antarcticus, Moroteuthis ingens).
Gentoos live mainly on crustaceans such as krill,fish making up only about 15% ofdiet.
Inwater, sea lions, leopard seals,orca,all predators ofGentoo. On land thereno predators offull grown gentoos, but birds have been knownsteal their eggschicks.
The Gentoo aremost timid speciespenguin.
Gentooalsoname ofLinux distribution named after this penguin.
