Adélie penguin

The Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) is an Antarctic penguin that has a black head and back with a white chest and belly, and a white ring around each of their eyes. About 2.5 million Adélie penguins are in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica. Adélie penguins travel the furthest to breed because they build their nests from stones and need to find stones. Adélies come ashore to breed in the summer. In the winter, they live on ice that floats off the Antarctic shore.

Adélie penguin Temporal range: Pleistocene to recent[1]
Hope Bay, Antarctica
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[2]
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Sphenisciformes
Family:	Spheniscidae
Genus:	Pygoscelis
Species:	P. adeliae
Binomial name
Pygoscelis adeliae (Hombron & Jacquinot, 1841)
Distribution of the Adélie penguin Nesting sites in red
Synonyms[3]
Catarrhactes adeliæ Eudyptes adeliae Pygoscelis brevirostris

Pygoscelis adeliae

Chicks and eggs

Adélie parents take turns keeping their chicks warm and fed. While one watches the nest, the other goes into the ocean to catch krill. The penguins carry the krill back to the nest in their stomachs. Then they regurgitate it to feed their chicks.

Most Adélie penguins incubate two eggs at a time. The little chicks hatch out at about the same time. One is usually stronger and has a better chance of surviving.

When first born, the chicks are kept warm by their parents. But after two or three weeks, they grow a thick, woolly gray down. Then they join other chicks in creches or nursery groups.

Size

Adélie penguins are the smallest penguins in Antarctica. They weigh only about 3–6 kilograms (6.6–13.2 lb),^[4] or the weight of a typical house cat. They are about 28 inches tall (2.3 ft; 71 cm).^[5]