Chinstrap Penguin

Quick Take

• One chinstrap penguin colony is officially the largest on Earth, and it has also been called the smelliest place on the planet for reasons that go beyond just penguin droppings. Smelliest place details →
• Chinstrap penguins look docile in photos, but they're known as the most aggressive of their kind, and their colony behavior is nothing short of dramatic. See their aggressive side →
• Ancient penguins once stood over five feet tall, but what drove them to become the tuxedoed birds we know today? Ancient penguin origins →
• Despite being listed as 'Least Concern,' chinstrap penguin populations are quietly declining, and the culprit is not what most people assume. Climate change threat explained →

The chinstrap penguin is one of the most abundant of all penguin species, with a world population of around 7.5 million breeding pairs. In fact, one of their colonies has more than a million breeding pairs of penguins on a remote island.

Incredible Chinstrap Penguin Facts

• The chinstrap penguin colony on Zavodovski Island in the South Atlantic Ocean is so large (an estimated 1.2 million breeding pairs) that the Guinness Book of World Records declared it the world’s “Largest penguin colony”.
• Many chinstrap penguins mate for life; mating pairs were found to get together 82 percent of the time.
• Chinstrap penguins are one of the most aggressive of the penguins.

Evolution

Fossil records indicate that all penguins’ common ancestors lived as long as 60 million years ago, with some ancient species standing over five feet tall. They are believed to have originated in temperate latitudes near what is now New Zealand. Antarctica was covered in forests at that time and connected to what would become New Zealand, Australia, South America, and surrounding islands. These ancient ancestors of penguins had diverged from the ancestors of petrels and albatrosses close to the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, around 66 million years ago.

The gradual cooling of the climate over the past 35 million years brought brutal changes to the ancient ancestors of the penguin, eventually driving the growth of ice sheets that covered almost all of Antarctica. The continents of Australia and South America drifted away from Antarctica while ocean currents encircled it. This cooling climate likely killed the older penguins, leaving the surviving penguins to compete with whales for the same prey.

While most of the ancient penguins became extinct, others, like the macaroni penguin, swam to warmer waters to establish new lineages. Species like the emperor penguin stayed in Antarctica and evolved adaptations suited to living in the cold environment. Chinstrap penguins are among the species that branched out to habitats beyond the Antarctic continent.

Scientific Name and Classification

The Chinstrap penguin has the scientific name Pygoscelis antarcticus. Its family name is Spheniscidae, and the class to which it belongs is Aves.

The chinstrap penguin is also called the ringed penguin, bearded penguin, and stone cracker penguin, a name derived from its loud, noisy call. The origin of the name penguin is not definitively known. It is possibly from the Welsh word “pen” meaning head, and “gwyn” meaning white.

Appearance and Behavior

the chinstrap penguin actually looks like a bird wearing a black helmet with a black chinstrap — reminiscent of the first aviator helmets. Otherwise white-faced, its bill and eyes are blackish. Their feet are pink with black soles. Young penguins have gray faces and will develop adult markings in 14 months.

They are not the largest of penguins; the chinstrap penguin is of medium size. Their length is 75 cm (29 inches), and they have an average weight of around 4 to 5 kg (9 to 11 pounds).

This penguin is known to be vocal and has an extremely loud voice when in its breeding colony. Chinstrap penguin calls are very loud; the penguin makes an “ah, kauk, kauk, kauk” sound as it raises its flippers and sways its head from side to side.

Chinstrap breeding colonies are not boring. They don’t just sit around in the sun — fights break out with much head waving and flipper slapping. Chinstraps call to each other in loud, shrill voices, bow, gesture, and preen their coats. If a territorial dispute occurs, they may stare, point, and charge.

The chinstrap penguin is very social and can be found in colonies with the Adélie penguin, cormorants, or other similar penguins. Their nests are simple and in rocky hollows. When it comes to defending against other species and each other, they are the most aggressive of the brush-tailed penguins.

A group of penguins is called a colony. Other names for the same group include waddle or rookery. A group of floating penguins on the ocean is called a raft. 

Habitat

Sometimes chinstraps roost on ice with other penguin breeds, such as the Adélie penguin. Considered the most aggressive of all penguins, they spend much of their lives out at sea, where they might feed on small fish and krill.

They live in Antarctica and in the Scotia Sea, the South Orkneys, the South Shetland Islands, and the South Sandwich Islands, where the largest of their colonies are found. They dwell on the beachfront of the Southern Ocean and are often in rocky or sandy habitats. A few hundred birds live not far from New Zealand, in the Balleny Islands in the Ross Dependency area.

In early April, which is autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, the chinstrap penguin follows the schools of krill as they migrate further north to warmer waters with less ice.

Diet

The chinstrap penguin enjoys diving. It may catch some fish, squid, and shrimp, but the vast majority of its diet comes from eating krill. With an estimated biomass of 379 million tons in the Southern Ocean, krill are abundant in the waters near where chinstrap penguins have their colonies.

However, with the mean air temperature rising dramatically (as much as 5 to 6 degrees Celsius) in many of the areas penguins hunt krill, the rise and fall of krill populations has been hypothesized to be the driving factor in fluctuations of penguin populations.

Predators and Threats

The main predators of the adult chinstrap penguin are leopard seals and killer whales. Studies of leopard seals have shown they can eat 1.4 to 5% of a colony of penguins during a breeding season. Leopard seals rely on stealth to hunt chinstrap penguins. They wait along the edges of ice sheets where penguins have congregated and catch penguins as they enter the water. Generally, once chinstrap penguins have entered open water, they face fewer threats.

Other predators include sea lions and sharks. The eggs and chicks are in danger from skuas, predatory seabirds. The largest threat to chinstrap penguins — as with other penguin species — is climate change, which has affected the abundance of krill. 

Reproduction, Babies, and Lifespan

Returning to the colony when seeking his mate, the male will beat on his chest with his flippers while raising his head to make a screeching sound. Other males often echo the same unique chinstrap penguin sounds when one has started to screech. Once the chinstrap penguin has found a mate, he will return to the same one every year; mating pairs reunite to form a special bond.

The breeding season is November/December through March. The chinstrap penguin lays two eggs; the timing is usually later than other penguin species nearby. Eggs are incubated by both the mother and father, who take turns in shifts of 5 to 10 days. After about 37 days, the eggs hatch. The baby chick stays with its parents for about a month before joining a group of young chicks.

A baby penguin is called a chick. They also might be referred to as nestlings. A group of baby penguins is called a crèche, where the chicks huddle together for warmth and protection against predators. This allows the parents to go hunting for food to bring back to the chick. After about two months, the fluffy down is replaced by waterproof feathers, and the chick is now ready to make its first trip to sea to hunt on its own.

The chinstrap penguin lives to be about 20 years old. The reported oldest living chinstrap penguin in North America was 32 years old in 2015 and was living in Moody Gardens in Texas.

Population

In July 2022, the IUCN estimated that the population of chinstrap penguins was 8 million individuals. They are the most abundant of all penguin species and are listed as “Least Concern,” although their population is declining overall.

They are found on circumpolar, subantarctic, and Antarctic islands, and the Antarctic Peninsula. When breeding, they are not on the ice but remain on the rocky coast. The most populous colony of chinstrap penguins is found on Zavodovski Island, which is an island in the South Sandwich Islands.

Beyond Antarctica, chinstrap penguins have also been seen in the following areas:

• Argentina
• Bouvet Island 
• Chile
• The Falkland Islands
• French Southern Territories
• South Georgia
• South Sandwich Islands
• Islands of New Zealand

More Chinstrap Penguin Facts

Their largest colony has been called “the smelliest place on Earth!”

With more than a million breeding pairs of penguins on a tiny island that’s just 3 miles (5 km) wide, you can imagine Zavodovski Island is a pretty smelly place. However, beyond penguin droppings, sulfuric air from an active volcano on the island also produces noxious smells. Hailed by the UK’s Telegraph as “the world’s smelliest place,” the island’s features have names like Stench Point, Pungent Point, and Noxious Bluff. 

A volcano also threatens their largest colony.

The stratovolcano on the stratovolcano on the island housing the largest colony of chinstrap penguins is named Mount Curry, and it began erupting in March 2016. The eruption covered much of the island in ash but also came at a time when chinstrap penguins had begun leaving their breeding grounds to forage at sea until the fall, which limited the impacts.

Featured in Planet Earth II

The documentary series Planet Earth II filmed the chinstrap penguins on Zavodovski. Getting to the remote island took more than a year of planning, and the documentary crew had to cross some of the roughest seas on Earth just to film this remote environment.