Galapagos Penguin
Galapagos, Ecuador (2005). These I saw in the Island Bartolomeo where I did snorquel with them around and could see how they hunted sardines underwater. The water was like 16 C but the view was worth the cold!
Galápagos penguins have a black head with a white border running from behind the eye, around the black ear-coverts and chin, to join on the throat. They have black-grey upperparts and whitish underparts, with two black bands across the breast, the lower band extending down the flanks to the thigh. Juveniles differ in having a wholly dark head, greyer on side and chin, and no breast-band. The female penguins are smaller than the males. They can get up to 50 cm tall.
The Galapagos penguin is a penguin endemic to the Galapagos Islands. It is the only penguin that lives north of the equator in the wild. It can survive due to the cool temperatures resulting from the Humboldt Current and cool waters from great depths brought up by the Cromwell Current. The Galapagos penguin is one of the banded penguins, the other species of which live mostly on the coasts of Africa and mainland South America.
