Rare penguin with strange coloring seen shaking its feathers in Antarctica, video shows
On the cold and rocky coast of Antarctica, a penguin went about its day, wandering around the boulders and shaking off its feathers. Nearby, a videographer filmed the strange-colored animal’s movements — and captured a rare sight.
Hugo Alejandro Harros Guerra is a Chilean navy official and amateur photographer working at the González Videla Antarctic Base, he told McClatchy News. While watching a colony of gentoo penguins, Guerra noticed something unusual.
One gentoo penguin appeared almost completely white, Guerra wrote in a Jan. 4 post on Instagram. A video shows the rare penguin standing atop some rocks and shaking its feathers.
Another video shared on Instagram on Jan. 9 shows the unusually colored penguin from several different angles. From behind, the bird is completely white and lacks the distinctive black feathers of the other nearby penguins.
Gentoo penguins typically have black feathers, “a bright red-orange bill and conspicuous white eye patches,” according to the Australian Antarctic Division. They are the “third largest penguin species” but one of the “least abundant” in Antarctica.
Videos show the white gentoo penguin walking around the rocks and going about its day. Its coloring makes it very easy to spot against the dark brown landscape.
Guerra identified the gentoo penguin as a female with leucism.
Leucism is a genetic condition that affects the amount of melanin an animal has, resulting in lighter white coloring. Although lighter colored, leucistic animals do not have red eyes like albino animals do.
Guerra nicknamed the white penguin Lucy and described it as beautiful and extraordinary.
“Every day Antarctica and this beautiful place surprise us with something different,” Guerra told The Telegraph.
Google Translate was used to translate the Instagram posts from Hugo Alejandro Harros Guerra.
This story was originally published January 15, 2024 at 2:02 PM with the headline "Rare penguin with strange coloring seen shaking its feathers in Antarctica, video shows."
