The macaroni penguins are a species of large-sized penguin, said to be the most abundantly found penguin species. They are aquatic birds, but cannot fly, like other species of penguins. These penguins are one of the six species of crested penguins, and are a close relative to the royal penguins. Some scientists and experts even consider both the royal and the macaroni penguins as one and the same species.
Table of Contents
Scientific Classification
Animalia
Chordata
Aves
Sphenisciformes
Spheniscidae
Eudyptes
Eudyptes chrysolophus
Table Of Content
Table of Contents
Scientific Classification
Animalia
Chordata
Aves
Sphenisciformes
Spheniscidae
Eudyptes
Eudyptes chrysolophus
Table of Contents
It gets its name from ‘Macaronis’, the hats worn by English explorers in 18th century which had similar features like their golden plumage on the forehead. Their population has dwindled over the years, for which conservational programs have been devised to protect them.
Macaroni penguin appearance
Height: They are taller than the penguins belonging to the other classes. By height, they can stand up to 70 cm. Macaroni penguins are a large-size species of the penguin family, looking taller and heavier than the other species.
Weight: Macaroni penguins’ weight greatly varies on sex and the time of year. Precisely, on an average, an adult macaroni penguin can weigh around 5.5 kg.
Wingspan: Varies between 10 and 12 inches.
Macaroni Penguin
Color: These penguins are well-known for their varied colors. These colorful penguins are marked by a few very distinctive features. A long red beak and a tuft of thin but bright mustard-yellow to orange feathers on the crest of their heads give a very handsome look to these Antarctica birds. Otherwise, these penguins share more or less the same black and white features of most other species of penguins. Their throat, chin, head and the upper parts are black, in sharp contrast with their white under parts. Their black feathers bear a blue tinge when new, but turn brownish when old.
Macaroni Penguin
Range and Distribution
Macaroni penguins are spread from the Sub-antarctic to the Antarctic Peninsula, including the northern South Shetland Islands, the Heard and McDonald Islands, the Prince Edward and Marion, Crozet and Kerguelen Islands, and the Bouvet Island. While these birds forage for food, their groups will range north to the islands off Australia, New Zealand, southern Brazil, Tristan da Cunha, and South Africa.
The breeding range of these penguins comprises sites located in south Indian Oceans, South Atlantic and the Antarctic Peninsula. Major sites are located in the first two, with only one in the Antarctic Peninsula. Though in general penguins are associated with Antarctica, these penguins have their breeding sites in sub-Antarctic regions.
Habitat
Their preferable habitat is the cliffs and rocky areas around the oceans and water bodies. Here the areas are devoid of much vegetation which is ideal for them to form colonies for breeding. Nests are made by digging burrows in the sand and gravel. Beyond the breeding season, it is believed to spend most of its life at sea.
Macaroni Penguin Habitat
Diet: What do macaroni penguins eat
Macaroni penguins mainly live on crustaceans, mainly consisting of krill, as well as small fish such as marbled rockcod, painted notie etc., and cephalopods. Annually, these South Pole birds consume more marine animals than any other species of seabird. During breeding season, krill constitute almost 90% of their food.
Adaptations
While swimming or diving in the deep sea, the macaroni penguins have strong vision. Their sharp eyesight helps protect them from their predators.
Being very skilled swimmers, their flippers have developed accordingly, so as to give them their excellent power of locomotion under deep waters. They also use their flippers to tuck their heads inside while sleeping.
These penguins use their feathers to ward off the extreme cold from coming in contact with their skin.
The female macaroni penguins attain the age of breeding one year earlier than the males because the female population is comparatively lower than the male population.
They have also made adjustment with their food, as they can survive on other aquatic creatures apart from krill, their chief diet.
When young, they grow special feathers for keeping them warm when their parents are away.
Certain features in their anatomy like black back along with white belly makes them camouflage in the sea. It is a defense mechanism adopted by them to survive amidst seals and whales.
Macaroni Penguin Swimming
Predators
Larger birds and mammals of the sea are the main predators of the macaroni penguins. Species of ice water seals like the Antarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus gazella), the leopard seal (Hydrurga leptonyx), Subantarctic fur seal (A. tropicalis) and the killer whale (Orcinus orca) at times prey upon matured macaroni penguins in the water. Predators usually take the macaroni penguin eggs, and also, the young or chick penguins, which are left alone and unprotected or secluded.
Macaroni Penguin Predators Pictures
Among the birds, the Skua species, the snowy sheathbill (Chionis alba), and kelp gull (Larus dominicanus) hunt the penguin eggs. The skuas and giant petrels at times take the baby penguins.
Macaroni Penguin Predators
Behavior
Macaroni penguins usually swim with a porpoising action, which helps them avoid being preyed upon by seals and whales. They travel just below the surface of the water. While swimming, they pop up on the surface of the water from time to time to take short breaths without slowing.
Like most other species of penguins, macaronis too use an elaborate set of sounds and calls, bows and displays for keeping their pair bond strong and secure. They also use this behavior also to locate, identify and feed their chicks.
When on land during breeding season, these penguins spend much time in preening for removing parasites and dirt, as also for maintaining the waterproof feature of their feathers. At times, preening each other mutually also helps to initiate the couple’s attachment.
Additional behavioral traits and characteristics of these penguins include:
After the chicks are born, the adults forage during the day and feed the chicks by regurgitation.
As they do not eat for quite some time during incubation, they lose almost 40% of their weight.
Though they are generally daytime foragers, night time foraging might occur in shallow waters.
Dives are very short, often only of duration of 2 minutes at the most.
Often they gulp down small pebbles, which have been explained to be a behavior that helps them in providing balance during dives and chewing food
Macaroni Penguin Image
They shed their feathers once every year.
During molting they cannot forage in the sea, so they eat lavishly and collect ample fat two weeks prior to it to survive that period.
Social interaction involves bill locking, wrestling or other aggression with bills. Pecking and beating each other with flippers are also common.
They form big colonies of breeding pairs, exceeding 2 million individuals.
It generally spends much of its time in the sea outside the breeding season.
Sounds
Commotion takes over during the breeding period which seems to get calmer when the males visit the sea. Noises made by these penguins are similar to those of other crested penguins, along with display calls which are unique to every bird. During the breeding season, it becomes noisy when they want to change their shifts and try to find their partners out by emitting trumpeting sounds. Sounds recorded at Kerguelen and South Georgia produce varied results. At South Georgia, a low pitched fast rhythmic tone is recorded but the one in Kerguelen is slower unlike the other site.
Mating
Around the month of October, the macaroni penguins move ashore after spending the winter at sea. They gather in mammoth colonies in order to locate and choose their mates, and finally incubating eggs and hatch out their chicks. The male and female macaroni penguins are ready to breed at the age of six and five, respectively.
Baby Macaroni Penguin
Macaroni Penguin Babies
Breeding
Macaroni Penguins breed during the summer months. Usually, these penguins breed in hugely packed colonies. The female penguins lay 2 eggs, making a shallow scrape in the ground (snow). However, it is extremely unlikely that the first egg will hatch out a chick. Usually only the second, larger egg is successfully hatches out after 34 days of incubation, and is incubated by both the parents.
Macaroni Penguin Eggs Pictures
Macaroni Penguin Eggs
For the first 3-4 weeks, the macaroni penguin hatchlings are taken care of by the father penguin. The mother penguin hunts for food for both the father and the child. As the baby macaroni penguins grow bigger, they join a nursery with other baby penguins, known as a creche. With this, both the parents are able to find food to satisfy the gradually growing appetite of their baby.
When the chick gains its full adult plumage while attaining 10 weeks of age, after which, they are ready to go to sea.
Baby Macaroni Penguin
Life Cycle
Chicks often subsist on the remainder of the yolk in the beginning. They unite in crèches to retain warmth in the absence of the male parent. They attain mesoptile plumage, by completion of 25 days. The babies embark to the sea after almost 65 to 70 days, as by this time their feathers grow. Females can start breeding from the age of five and males usually copulate from 6 years of age.
Macaroni Penguin Egg
Lifespan
The macaroni penguins may live for up to 15 years on an average in their natural habitats.
Migration
Macaroni penguins are migratory birds. When it is not the season of breeding, it is less likely that these birds would be found near land. When foraging, the penguins move away in groups all the way to the different islands off New Zealand, Australia, Tristan da Cunha, southern Brazil and South Africa.
Are macaroni penguins endangered
Although, Macaroni penguins are not endangered species, but due to its sudden decline in population since the mid-1970s, the IUCN reclassified the conservation status of these creatures as ‘vulnerable’.
Like many of the penguin species, these penguins, at times, deliberately swallow pebbles (10– to 30-mm-diameter). This behavior of these crested penguins has been speculated to be helping them like ballast for deep-sea diving. This act also helps them grind their food, mainly the exoskeletons of crustaceans, which serve as a part of their main diets.
The average swimming speed of macaroni penguins is around six miles per hour (10km/h).
Macaroni penguins are mostly monogamous by nature.
The present population of the ‘vulnerable’ Macaroni Penguins is approximately 12 million pairs.
Macaroni Penguins were named thus by the early English explorers because of the yellow cluster of plumes on their head, resembling the feathers worn by the young 18th century men called “macaronis” on their hats.
One of their eggs is much bigger than the other and this unique fact has engaged scientists for years who are trying to find out the reason behind it.
