Sub-Antarctic-dwelling king penguin spotted unusually far north at Port Davey, Tasmania

ABC Radio Hobart By Georgie Burgess

Posted 19 Feb 2020, 6:23am

A second king penguin has been spotted on mainland Tasmania, with one wildlife officer calling the sighting especially rare "unless you're on a tourist ship going to Antarctica".

Key points:

A king penguin was spotted by kayakers on a beach at Port Davey in Tasmania's far south-west

The species is usually seen 1,500km further south in Sub-Antarctic regions such as Macquarie Island

It is the second such unusual sighting this year, but a wildlife officer says it is no cause for concern

The penguin was spotted by kayakers at Port Davey in Tasmania's far south-west.

Wildlife officer Julie McInnes said it was a different penguin to the bird spotted at Seven Mile Beach near Hobart last month.

Dr McInnes said it was unusual to have two king penguins sighted in one year.

"This is a really rare thing for people to see, unless you're on a tourist ship going to Antarctica," Dr McInnes told ABC Radio Hobart.

The birds usually call Macquarie Island, about 1,500 kilometres from Tasmania, home.

"Given the remote location of the second bird, there may be a number of birds that come ashore over the years which are not seen or reported," Dr McInnes said.

She said "vagrant" juvenile penguins were known to come ashore away from their colonies from time to time.

"They can disperse quite a way," she said.

Continued

Sub-Antarctic-dwelling king penguin spotted unusually far north at Port Davey, Tasmania

ABC Radio Hobart By Georgie Burgess

A second king penguin has been spotted on mainland Tasmania, with one wildlife officer calling the sighting especially rare "unless you're on a tourist ship going to Antarctica".

Key points:

A king penguin was spotted by kayakers on a beach at Port Davey in Tasmania's far south-west

The species is usually seen 1,500km further south in Sub-Antarctic regions such as Macquarie Island

It is the second such unusual sighting this year, but a wildlife officer says it is no cause for concern

The penguin was spotted by kayakers at Port Davey in Tasmania's far south-west.

Wildlife officer Julie McInnes said it was a different penguin to the bird spotted at Seven Mile Beach near Hobart last month.

Dr McInnes said it was unusual to have two king penguins sighted in one year.

"This is a really rare thing for people to see, unless you're on a tourist ship going to Antarctica," Dr McInnes told ABC Radio Hobart.

The birds usually call Macquarie Island, about 1,500 kilometres from Tasmania, home.

"Given the remote location of the second bird, there may be a number of birds that come ashore over the years which are not seen or reported," Dr McInnes said.

She said "vagrant" juvenile penguins were known to come ashore away from their colonies from time to time.

Continued

Rare white penguin on Macquarie Island hopes birds of a different feather still flock together

ABC Radio Hobart By Georgie Burgess

Updated 17 Jul 2019, 7:29am

A pale king penguin spotted on Macquarie Island might have plenty of picture appeal, but there's some very real consequences to standing out from the crowd.

"One thing is certain — something has gone wrong in its development," said Barbara Wienecke, a senior scientist with the Australian Antarctic Division.

"It's not an albino, because it still has a little bit of colour in the plumage."

Colour aberrations in penguins were rare, Dr Wienecke said, which made them hard to study.

She said the young bird had dark eyes and a black beak and feet, yet would still be more at risk of being killed by a predator.

"Often the light-coloured birds, because they are so different to everybody else, fall victim to predators more easily."

'Altered' pigment process

Chicks start off brown but later turn black; Dr Wienecke said penguins' black colour was due to two types of melanin.

An altered pigment process was likely the cause of the white penguin's condition, she said.

"In all likelihood it will retain a pale colour, and it will be interesting to see whether its belly turns white."

Expeditioners will keep an eye on the chick to see if it makes it through winter.

Continued

Rare pale-colored penguin and seals spotted on remote island

A king penguin and fur seals seen on South Georgia Island have mutations that affect how their bodies make various pigments.

An oddly colored king penguin stands out in a photograph taken at St. Andrews Bay, South Georgia Island, in March 2019.

BY DOUGLAS MAIN

PUBLISHED APRIL 25, 2019

Remote South Georgia Island, about 1,200 miles east of South America’s southern tip, is a seasonal home for only a few dozen humans—but many thousands of seals, penguins, and other creatures.

On a recent National Geographic expedition to the island, photographer Jeff Mauritzen happened upon some animals that were birds of a different feather: A king penguin and fur seals with separate, yet rare, genetic mutations that make them all appear pale.

The striking penguin was spotted on a rainy morning, and as luck would have it, the weather cleared for about ten minutes, just enough time to get some photographs, Mauritzen says.

Continued

Hello Maru! Baby penguin takes first public waddle in Jurong Bird Park

The baby king penguin is the first of its kind to be hatched at the bird park in close to a decade.

13 Dec 2017 07:47PM (Updated: 14 Dec 2017 05:54PM)

SINGAPORE: A baby king penguin waddled into view in Singapore's bird park on Wednesday (Dec 13), the first of its kind to be hatched there in close to a decade.

Maru, which means "round" in Japanese, came from parents Zoro and Sora, part of the king penguin colony in the Jurong Bird Park's penguin exhibit, said Wildlife Reserves Singapore in a press release on Wednesday.

To maximise survival chances, keepers retrieved the egg and incubated it until it hatched on Oct 10.

Read more at 

King penguin made a Brigadier in Edinburgh

22 August 2016

A King penguin at Edinburgh Zoo has been made a Brigadier by the King of Norway's Guard.

Nils Olav was given the honour by members of the Norwegian guard who are performing at the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo.

There have been three penguins called Nils Olav at the zoo, which have been mascots of the Norwegian King's Guard since 1972.

The second Nils Olav was knighted in 2008.

Brig David Allfrey, producer and chief executive of The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, said: "This is just a simply fantastic example of the great relations between our two countries, and it couldn't be a more charming tradition.

"At the Tattoo we of course have many inspecting officers but this is by far my favourite. Congratulations, Brigadier Olav."

Source 

Surviving Fasting in the Cold

July 2, 2013 — King penguin chicks survive harsh winters with almost no food by minimising the cost of energy production. A new study, to be presented at the Society for Experimental Biology meeting in Valencia on the 3rd July, shows that the efficiency of the mitochondria, the power house of the cell, is increased in fasted king penguin chicks.

King penguin chicks are socially and morphologically well adapted to harsh environmental conditions, however, they experience a severe energy challenge during the cold sub-Antarctic winter, when food is not readily available. Research headed by Pierre-Axel Monternier and Prof Damien Roussel at the Ecology of Natural and Man-impacted Hydrosystems laboratory in France looked, for the first time, at how the king penguin chicks' mitochondria in skeletal muscle, the main heat producing tissue in birds, function during fasting in the winter.

Pierre-Axel Monternier said: "We found that the efficiency of mitochondrial functioning increased in fasted winter-acclimatized king penguin chicks. This indicates that less substrate/oxygen was consumed to produce the same amount of energy in the form of ATP, showing that mitochondria from fasted chicks adjust its functioning to minimize the cost of energy production."

Continued