Gentoo penguin
Pygoscelis papua
— Where the name comes from
Pygoscelis is “rump-legged”, from pygḗ and skélos, for the far-back set of the legs. Papua is a mistake: the naturalist who described the species received a specimen with the wrong locality on it and took it for a New Guinea bird, where penguins have never been. The name has stuck, and Italian has translated it too.
— Facts
- Group
- Birds · Aves
- Order
- Penguins
- Habitat
- Subantarctic islands and the Antarctic Peninsula, on beaches and clear slopes
- Range
- Antarctica and the islands of the Southern Ocean
- Size
- 70–90 cm, 4.5–8.5 kg
- Diet
- Krill, fish, squid
- Lifespan
- 20 years in the wild
— Characteristics
- 01
It is the fastest of all birds in water: thirty-six kilometres an hour.
- 02
It builds its nest of stones, and steals them from whoever is not looking.
- 03
It is told by the white band across the top of the head.
— What sets it apart
The stones of the nest are a currency. The male brings one to the female as a courtship gift, pairs hoard them all season, and the neighbours steal them constantly whenever attention wanders: around the colonies one sees files of penguins coming and going with a pebble in the bill, some heading home, others returning from a theft. On a continent where there is no other building material, a smooth stone of the right size is the most valuable thing anyone can own.
