Dr. Jessica Kemper is an expert and advocate for the endangered African penguin.  Formerly the head of Section for Namibia's Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources (MFMR) and responsible for the conservation management and rescue of the country's seabirds, Jessica now heads the African Penguin Conservation Project. She continues to research Namibia's dwindling penguin population to find ways to improve their conservation status and runs the Seabird Rehabilitation Center in Lüderitz. Population numbers for African penguins have decreased to just 55,000 today from an approximate 1.5 million figure in 1910.

In her following guest posts, she will share a bit about working with wild penguins.

My name is Jessica and I am a penguin biologist. I live in the pretty little harbor town of Lüderitz on the southern coast of Namibia. Most of my fieldwork takes place on Halifax Island, home nearly 6,000 African penguins and about 10 km west of town as the crow flies.

For the last eight years my colleague Dr. Katrin Ludynia, aka Katta, from the University of Cape Town in South Africa has teamed up with me for a project that involves deploying GPS data loggers on unsuspecting breeding African penguins. These loggers regularly record over time the position of a penguin as well as other information such as time, dive depth and water temperature. This in turn provides important insights on penguin foraging areas, habitats, ranges and behavior which are vital for guiding conservation management of this endangered species.

Logger arriving and greeting partner: Home after a foraging trip, a penguin  bearing one of our GPS loggers arrives back in its nest. Photo: Jessica Kemper | Namibia Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources

The general idea is to equip a penguin with such a device for about two days to obtain precise details of one foraging trip. The device is small enough not to be a burden to the penguin, but it also means that it is limited in terms of how much data can be stored; its battery life span is about three days. The device has to be retrieved in order to download the data and great care is therefore needed to choose a penguin that is likely to return to the colony after a foraging trip. Katta and I have done this many, many times and by now are pretty good at choosing the right penguin to carry our precious piece of equipment.

How to select the perfect candidate…the trick is to find an accessible (but not isolated) nest with a relaxed-looking penguin caring for one or two well-fed, medium- to large-sized downy chicks. At this stage of chick development, African penguins are strongly bonded with their offspring and the chicks are still small enough to be looked after by one parent (while the other one is away foraging, usually for about a day). Choosing smaller chicks is unwise, as the disturbance created by catching the parent may cause nest abandonment at that stage. Small chicks are also at greater risk of being viciously attacked by upset penguins nesting next door or by marauding kelp gulls while the parent is being equipped. Choosing chicks close to fledging age may also be problematic; at that stage parental commitment may be abating as the chicks are subtly encouraged to start fending for themselves.

Keep reading with Part 2 of this series. Everything starts out according to plan, but the researchers quickly realize they are working with an unusual penguin!

Can't wait, need more penguins right now? Visit the Aquarium! It's the summer of Penguinology right now. So not only will you be able to observe more than 80 penguins, you'll be able to learn the most wild and surprising facts about these beloved birds. 

When people find out that I work at the Aquarium, there is no shortage of questions and interesting small talk. I often get asked: “Is it true that a child stole a penguin and brought it home in his backpack?”

Don’t be alarmed. All of our penguins are present and accounted for and this story is a common urban legend that has been circulating for years.

All penguins present and accounted for!

While the details vary from telling to telling; the main gist of the story is that a child wearing a backpack gets separated from their family or school group. Once reunited the child wants to go home. At home the child goes and takes a bath. After hearing lots of splashing in the tub, the parents check in and are surprised to find a penguin in the tub with the child. The penguin is immediately returned to the Aquarium and the embarrassed parents reprimand their child.

As crazy as this story sounds many people are fooled into thinking that it’s true. Here are a few key reasons why this could not really happen at our Aquarium:

• First: the design of our exhibit makes it pretty difficult for a person to get in and out unnoticed. All penguin personnel wear wetsuits in the exhibit every day to feed and take care of our penguins and a soaking wet child would be quite noticeable. 

As you can see, the volunteers are wading around the exhibit in a wetsuit, while visitors look on from above.

• Second: penguins are quite vocal when being picked up and transported. It is doubtful that a penguin in a backpack would go quietly.  

• And most importantly is the fact that our penguins like most wild animals do not like to be handled or picked up. Although relatively small, our penguins are very strong, and would put up a fight. As staff, we are trained to handle them safely. But even with our skills the penguins will occasionally bite us. It seems pretty unlikely that a child would be able to capture a penguin and force it into a backpack and come out unscathed.  

Educator Jo Blasi wears a glove and forearm protectors while volunteering with  a penguin rescue program in South Africa.

Since so many people asked about this myth in 2006 we held a press conference, to assure the public that none of our penguins were penguin-napped.

Learn more about the penguins at the Aquarium:

• Check out our Penguinology program happening this summer!
• Learn how these animals are hand fed in the exhibit
• When the penguins are transported, it's not in backpacks

Better yet, come visit!

Often while in the penguin exhibit we hear visitors ask if we have macaroni penguins. At first this may sound quite weird. Is there even a species of penguin called the macaroni and if there is, why would they be named after a type of pasta?

Macaroni penguin

Well, there is in fact a species of penguin called the macaroni penguin (Eudyptes chrysolophus). They are one of the 7 penguin species in the crested penguin family. All seven species have characteristic yellow crest feathers on their heads. Southern rockhoppers (Eudyptes chrysocome) are members of the crested penguin family, which are often confused for macaronis at the Aquarium. One distinct difference between macaroni penguins and rockhoppers is how their crest feathers are “styled”.  Rockhoppers have crest feathers that start over their eyes like eyebrows and then branch off the sides of their heads while the more golden or orange crests of a macaroni penguin start at a point above their beaks and flair out past the eyes. Macaroni penguins also have larger, blunter beaks; stand over 2 feet tall and can weigh up to 14 pounds.

Southern rockhopper penguin

Both rockhopper and macaroni penguins have very large distributions ranges in the sub-Antarctic region and overlap in many locations like the Falkland Islands and other sub-Antarctic Islands like Kerguelen Island, Prince Edward and Marion Island. They also share many distinct behaviors. Both types of penguins are surface nester, meaning they build nests on open surfaces by collecting rocks, twigs and whatever else they can find. They also lay dimorphic eggs which mean the two eggs a female will lay will be noticeably different sizes

Ecstatic display by one of our rockhopper penguins

To impress a mate both types of penguins will perform ecstatic displays consisting of a bow forward, extension the head and neck straight up followed by loud vocalizations and shaking their heads back and forth displaying their beautiful crest feathers.



Now the burning question: how did the macaroni penguins get such a silly name?

Macaronism was a style of dress popular in 18th century Europe, consisting of elaborate outfits, oftentimes including hats with large ornate feathers on them. People who adopted this style were called macaronis. In the early 19th century, English sailors on the Falkland Islands saw macaroni penguins with their elaborate crest feathers and named them macaronis.

The line “He put a feather in his cap and called it macaroni” from the song Yankee Doodle also refers to that fancy fashion style.

If you like penguins—because of their signature waddle, dapper feathers, impressive trills, speedy underwater flight—then get yourself to the New England Aquarium this summer!

Not only are there more than 80 penguins to observe bounding, eating, swimming and squawking around their exhibit, but we have a brand new, family-friendly program all about the secret world of penguins! It's called Penguinology, and when you finish your journey you'll be a penguinologist armed with gobs of new information to share about these beloved birds.

While its parents are having a little swim behind this scenes, this little blue penguin chick is getting weighed and measured to make sure it's growing up healthy and strong.

Here's how it works: When you visit the Aquarium, pick up one of our Penguinology guides. Each one delves into prehistoric penguins, unbelievable penguin anatomy features and introduces researchers who are dedicated to helping penguins in the wild. You'll also find a penguin mystery on every page, which is only solved at one of our special decoder stations throughout the building!

We're also planning special opportunities for visitors to connect with the dedicated folks who take care of the penguins every day: our penguin biologists. They'll talk about what's going on behind the scenes—and it's all sorts of cute! You see, the Aquarium takes part in Species Survival Plans to raise penguin chicks. So right now there are pairs of penguin parents raising chicks in cozy burrows! These daily presentations in the Blue Planet Action Center are your way to learn about what it takes to help these penguin parents raise healthy chicks here at the Aquarium!

Inside the 150-thousand gallon penguin exhibit, we'll have our usual presentations and feedings. That's when Aquarium staff or volunteers don wetsuits and slip into the 56˚ water to care for and talk about the birds we have on exhibit. You'll learn about the plight of penguins in the wild and what you can do to help penguin species in the wild—where climate change and invasive species are just some of the challenges they face.

You'll find wet-suited penguin keepers in and around the exhibit all day. They're either giving presentations, feeding the birds or scrubbing the islands  to make sure they're clean and healthy for the birds.

The New England Aquarium is your destination for all things penguins this summer. And oh yeah, you'll also find hundreds more marine animals while you're here at the Aquarium, too. From fur seals and sea lions to sea turtles and eels, let a visit to the Aquarium transport you to far corners of our blue planet. Hope to see you around!

Now here's a penguin that wears his heart on his sleeve. Actually, his chest.

Meet Quoin!

We have mentioned in previous blogs that the African penguins have spot patterns on their chests that are unique to each penguin, sort of like our finger prints. Being that we just celebrated Valentine’s Day, I would like to introduce you to one of our African penguins who has a very fitting spot pattern.

Note his blue and brown bracelet on his left wing

This is Quoin II he has a blue and brown bracelet on his left wing. He was born at the Aquarium on May, 25, 2010, and his parents are Alfred and Treasure II (formerly profiled in another Valentine's Day post!!).

Quoin as a juvenile

If you remember from previous blog posts juvenile African penguins have a different feather pattern than adults. They won’t get their adult plumage until they are about a year and a half to two years old. So when he molted from his juvenile feathers to his adult feathers we were quite surprised to see that Quoin’s spot pattern resembled a heart shape right on the middle of his chest.

Quoin adult plumage revealed a distinct heart shape!

Quoin is named after an island in Mossel Bay, South Africa, that was once an African penguin breeding island. Quoin is an old English word for a wedge of metal, or wood used elevate muzzle loading canons and describes the physical appearance of the island.  

You can read some of our more “romantic” blog posts about the penguin breeding programs here at the Aquarium. Our penguins are part of a species survival plan for African penguins, which are endangered in the wild. 

• Learn about romantic getaways for the breeding pairs
• Once a pair lays an egg, here's how biologists check on the eggs
• When the chicks start to hatch out of their shells, it's called pipping
• And then...penguin chicks! Oh the cuteness
• The chicks get regular check-ups
• And regular dips in the pool when their juvenile plumage grows in
• Then it's time for them to join the rest of the colony in the exhibit!