As white as snow. This is the rare gentoo penguin specimen
without its usual two-color plumage due to leucism that surprised the Chilean Navy team at the Gabriel González Videla Antarctic base.
"Last Thursday, January 4, we had the arrival of a very particular penguin, completely white," said Hugo Harros, cook at the scientific station located in the Bahía Paraíso Harbor Master's Office, in the north of the Antarctic Peninsula.
14 people live in that base in the middle of a colony of thousands of these birds, with the scientific name "Pygoscelis papua" and recognizable by a beautiful black upper coloration with white touches on the belly and over the eyes.
The penguin has leucism (AFP).
However, the specimen sighted
"was completely different from the rest
," said Harros, a 33-year-old non-commissioned officer who is on a four-month mission on the White Continent until March.
"This penguin had leucism," he added, referring to
a genetic variation
that partially or totally affects the coloring of an animal's skin, feathers or fur, but does not make it more sensitive to the sun like albinism.
a hereditary gene
Diego Mojica, a marine biologist from the Malpelo Foundation and other Marine Ecosystems who accompanies an Antarctic mission of the Colombian Navy aboard the scientific ship ARC Simón Bolívar, explained that leucism "is the product of a recessive gene that apparently is somehow
hereditary.
".
"In a certain percentage among thousands of penguins an individual can be born" with this exceptional condition, he highlighted.
It has a genetic variation that affects the coloration of an animal's skin, feathers, or fur (AFP).
In videos made by Harros, you can see the bird, with a faint reddish beak and wings and whitish plumage, walking on the rocks
in the middle of its bicolor colony.
The people at the military base "were very amazed by the encounter we were having, we quickly wanted to be able to take photographs to remember," said the non-commissioned officer, also an amateur photographer.
They found a rare penguin in Antarctica that is white as snow (AFP).
The species "Pygoscelis papua" has a population of
774,000 individuals
, considered stable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
It has a genetic variation that affects the coloration of an animal's skin, feathers, or fur (AFP).
Scientists estimate, however, that human activity could have an impact on their health.
In 2022, the discovery of a colony of those also known as Johnny penguins in a more southern Antarctic area than usual worried conservation organizations about the possible impact of climate change.
Gentoos, which can reach about
90 centimeters in height
, are considered the fastest swimming penguins among their species, reaching
speeds of up to 36 km/h.
AFP Agency.
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GML