What is special about Magellanic penguins?

Due to environmental changes that have displaced fish stocks, Magellanic penguins now have to swim an additional 80 km to hunt, delaying their return to the nest where the incubating or brooding parents are without food. Magellanic penguins stay with their flocks while hunting, diving as deep as 75 m.

Female Magellanic penguins become sexually mature at 4 years of age, males at around 5 years. Magellanic penguins gather in large nesting colonies along the Falkland Islands, the southern tip of Chile and the coast of Argentina during the breeding season. These colonies can number up to 400,000 individuals. Magellanic penguins are monogamous, returning to the same mating partner each year. 

Two eggs are usually laid. The eggs are incubated for about 40 days, with the parents taking turns incubating the eggs every week and a half or so. The non-incubating parents head to the sea to hunt and rebuild body fat, as they do not eat at all during their incubation duties. When the chicks hatch, both parents take turns caring for them, switching again so that one can go hunting and bring food back to the nest every 2 or 3 days. This process takes a full month. By the end of the first month after hatching, the chicks have begun to grow waterproof feathers. Because they are born in burrows that provide shelter from the elements and predators, Magellanic penguin chicks do not form protective groups with other chicks (called "penticons") like other penguin species. The chicks graduate from chicks (juvenile penguins and adult finches) anywhere from 2 to 16 months after hatching, depending on how much food is available in the area.

The Magellanic penguin is named after Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, whose crew sighted it sailing around the tip of South America during their historic, if controversial, attempt to circumnavigate the globe in 1519. The Falk Islands.

One of 18 penguin species, Magellanic penguins are known for their black bodies and white bellies, which help them evade predators while swimming. Seen from above, the penguin's white back blends into the dark sea, while from below, its white belly is camouflaged by the light of the sky. Penguins' bodies are ideal for swimming, thanks to their slender body shape that tapers at both ends, webbed feet, and long fins that help them paddle. The fat feathers also keep penguins warm.

Male penguins arrive at habitats first to claim their nesting sites, also known as burrows, while females arrive a few days later. Laying an average of two eggs each breeding season, these penguin chicks are raised together in their nests until they are old enough to find their own food.