ESOL - The Adelie Penguins

Adelie penguin and adaptations



The Adelie Penguin is common along the entire coast of the Antarctic. These penguins are mid-sized, being 46 to 71 cm in height and 3.6 to 6.0 kg in weight. They have a white ring surrounding their eyes and feathers at the base of the bill. The Adelie penguin's appearance looks somewhat like a tuxedo. I think the black and white colour is used for camouflage because a predator looking up from below has difficulty distinguishing between a white penguin belly and the reflective water surface. The Adelie penguins usually swim at around 8 km/h. They are able to leap some 3 metres out of the water on land. I think this adaptation is used when their camouflage doesn't work and the predator can see them so they leap out of the water on land where the predator can't get them. 

The Adelie penguin behaviour


The male performs this display by stretching his head and neck up while pointing his bill vertically. He then flaps his outstretched wing while making a call that resembles the loud mutual display. The loud mutual display consists of the mutual display where the Adelie raises and waves its head from side to side plus the several syllables mutual call. During non-breeding times the Adelie penguin can be found as far as 1000 km away from its breeding grounds. They leave their breeding grounds sometime during late December through early February and don’t return to their breeding grounds until 7 months later in September or October. The Adelie penguins are known to identify others as mates, neighbours, or strangers by the other’s Loud Mutual Call. When a male hears its mate’s call they will often respond by calling back to the mate, looking at or for their mate, and by rearranging nest stones or eggs. Females also respond similarly to a mate’s call. When hearing a neighbour, males show comfort behaviour which includes actions such as preening, stretching, shaking, yawning, or defecating. 



Adelie Penguins Sexual Behaviour

We like to think of Adelie as innocent little butlers but they're hornier than a pair of teens in a Meatloaf song. In 1912 explorer George Murray Levick observed a group of thirsty ass male penguins so horned up and looking for sex, that he labelled them hooligan cocks. The Adelie Penguins humps everything that moves and a lot of stuff that don't. Including injured females, baby penguins that had fallen out of nests, corpses, even the ground itself. They literally fucked a hole in the earth. To quote Levick's journal, "There seems to be no crime too low for these penguins." His findings were so shocking that the academic community refused to publish his work. Turns out not to just be a few Adelie. Research now suggested this non-stop pleasure is pretty common among Adelies. Males interpret almost any behaviour as an invitation for mating. In fact, it takes surprisingly little to get a male Adelie in the mood. Researchers found that even a female's severed head with stickers for eyes, on top of a rock, was enough to attract a male penguin.