Posted on 01/20/2025 11:00:52 AM PST by Red Badger
“I don’t believe anyone has seen this all black penguin before.”
Partial melanism is as rare as 1-in-250,000 in penguins, but this morph is even rarer than that.
Image credit: Yves Adams/Compass Media
An ultra-rare all-black penguin has been spotted on South Georgia Island, standing out among its more typical black-and-white buddies by bucking the tuxedo trend with an entirely black body. Remarkably, the rare animal was captured by a photographer who’s no stranger to unusual color morphs, having snapped a peculiar yellow-and-white penguin back in 2021.
After receiving a tip from his expedition leader that there was an unusual bird waddling across South Georgia Island, Belgium-based photographer Yves Adams went in search, camera in hand. His efforts were rewarded when he found a king penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus) like no other he’d seen before, one with black feathers all over its body.
“Melanism is something that occurs very rarely within birds and mammals,” said Adams in a statement sent to IFLScience. “I’ve heard about it before in other species of penguins so I’ve wanted to see it for a really long time.”
“It’s one out of a colony of hundreds of thousands of penguins that has this colour morph.”
VIDEO AT LINK...............
It’s been estimated that just partial melanism could be as rare as one in a quarter million – and without much in the way of documentation or scientific study of all-black penguins, this fancy king penguin is likely even rarer. As Dr Allan Baker, an ornithologist and professor of Environmental and Evolutionary Studies at the University of Toronto, told National Geographic, melanistic birds typically have at least some white patches.
You can see an example of this in a clip from the BBC series Dynasties that shows a bird with white spots on its otherwise black belly. Given that even this bird had producers asking “is this the rarest penguin on Earth?” – this latest all-black penguin might just swipe the title.
VIDEO AT LINK..............
You can see an example of this in a clip from the BBC series Dynasties that shows a bird with white spots on its otherwise black belly. Given that even this bird had producers asking “is this the rarest penguin on Earth?” – this latest all-black penguin might just swipe the title.
All black penguins. Only in America.
This is for all you literalists out there:
Earth angel, earth angel
Will you be mine?
My darling dear
Love you all the time
I'm just a fool
A fool in love with you
Earth angel, earth angel
The one I adore
Love you forever and ever more
I'm just a fool
A fool in love with you
I fell for you and I knew
The vision of your love, loveliness
I hope and I pray that someday
I'll be the vision of your hap-happiness, oh, oh..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJcGi4-n_Yw
Earth Angel:
He also is sans the golden temples. 🙂👍
There goes the neighborhood.
I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist
Tekeli-li!
Yeah, but his vertical leap is amazing.
Dark MAGA.
Wow, I was off by a bit. Thank you for the link to absorb some new knowledge today.
Funny, and the pool guy was a crow.
https://nationaltoday.com/national-penguin-day/
None of these clowns knows what the word incredible means. Lying clickbaiters.
Incredibly, incredible means ‘NOT credible’!...................
Every girl penguin is crazy about a sharp dressed man penguin
Every penguin looks good in a tux.
Once they go black, they never go back!.................
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