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Lone Adelie penguin at Cape Royds.

Lone Adelie penguin at Cape Royds.
Lone Adelie penguin at Cape Royds.
Lone Adelie penguin at Cape Royds.
Lone Adelie penguin at Cape Royds.
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131631
Linder, Christopher L.
Lone Adelie penguin at Cape Royds.
Still Image
12/02/2007
graphics/pd3-1/cl_20071202_antarctica_adeliepenguins_030.jpg
There are about 2.5 million Adelie penguins in the world. Like all penguins, Adelies live in the southern hemisphere and spend most of their lives in the ocean. They can't fly, and they have much heavier bones than most birds, which helps them to dive. Penguins are unique among birds in having a fixed, straight wing that they cannot bend; it makes a very efficient flipper. Adelies are extremely hardy and live farther south than any other penguin species (the farthest-south penguin colony in the world is right here at Cape Royds). Their bright-white eye ring is very expressive; they can widen it to glare at an intruder or to impress a mate, or narrow it until it nearly disappears. This expressiveness extends to the rest of their feathers. As you'll see another day, Adelies can drastically change the shape of their head, neck, breast and overall posture just by puffing out or slicking back their feathers.
Image Of the Day caption:
Adélie penguins are one of the three brush-tail penguin species that live exclusively on and around Antarctica. Individuals return to the same breeding colony every year to mate and hatch their young from October to March. Then they spend the Austral winter feeding from sea ice of the Southern Ocean, travelling up to 17,600 kilometers from their breeding colony. This Adélie was photographed at Cape Royds on the Ross Sea by researchers on the Polar Discovery Expedition 3. Currently, WHOI biologists Stephanie Jenouvrier and Michael Polito are studying the impacts of climate on penguin populations.
Photo by Chris Linder
© Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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