Adelie penguin

The Adelie penguin is the archetypical penguin, the little gentleman in the tuxedo, a figure of fun on land as it waddles around but once at sea it is capable of diving to 500 feet (152 metres) and at around 8 kilometres per hour. Efficient streamlining once it is in the water is responsible for this.

Penguins were first recorded by Europeans in the late 15th century as Vasco da Gama's expedition rounded the Cape of Good Hope: these were the Jackass penguins of Southern Africa. Magellan's expedition encountered the flightless birds in Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia and subsequently the birds are often mentioned in the accounts of seamen rounding South America to reach the Pacific Ocean. Scientific description of the birds was not undertaken: they were either objects of amazement, mirth or food.

The French expedition commanded by Jules-Sebastien-Cesar Dumont D'Urville, directed to explore Antarctica by the French king Louis-Philippe 1, reached East Antarctica in January 1840. Dumont D'Urville called the coast he discovered Adelie Land after his wife, and the penguins which were found there were also called Adelie. His scientists Jacques Hombron and Charles Jacquinot recorded the bird, naming it Dasyramphe Adeliae. The name was subsequently changed to Pygoscelis adeliae. The birds were not treated so respectfully when the French claimed possession of the nearby coastline for France: 'They hurled down the penguins, who were much astonished to find themselves so brutally dispossessed of the island, of which they were the sole inhabitants.' (Martin, p. 90)

Adelies congregate in large rookeries, coming ashore during October and sometimes crossing 100 kilometres of ice pack to do so. They build a nest of stones and are not averse to stealing these from each others' nests. One or two eggs are laid and then incubated by the male while the female returns to the sea to feed. She returns to the nest and her mate about two weeks later when it is his turn to go and feed.

In this plate the other penguin shown is the Yellow-eyed penguin found only in New Zealand and the Auckland and Campbell Islands. Also first described by Hombron and Jacquinot, its name Corfou Antipode has now been changed to Megadyptes antipodes.

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