Species profile

Name: the Adelie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) is a species of penguin common along the coast of the Antarctic continent.

Appearance: Adelie penguins have black heads, throats, and backs, with snowy white stomachs. They also have conspicuous white rings around their black eyes.

Size: they measure around 70 cm in length and weigh up to 8 kg.

Diet: they mainly feed on krill, silverfish, and squid.

Did you know: Adelie penguins have delighted and intrigued Antarctic explorers for years. One of the survivors of Scott’s ill-fated British Antarctic Expedition of 1910 wrote, “whatever a penguin does has individuality, and he lays bare his whole life for all to see. He cannot fly away. And because he is quaint in all that he does, but still more because he is fighting against bigger odds than any other bird, and fighting always with the most gallant pluck, he comes to be considered as something apart from the ordinary bird”. More recently their bold and boisterous personalities made them stars on the BBC documentary Spy in the Snow, when an Adelie penguin chased off a giant petrel that was attacking a group of emperor penguin chicks.

Location: breeding colonies of Adelie penguins are scattered along Antarctica’s coasts and on a number of sub-Antarctic islands.

Where to see Adelie penguins

According to reports submitted to WildSide, you can see Adelie penguins in the following places:

Photo credit: Liam Quinn under a Creative Commons licence from Flickr