THE POLAR TIMES: July 2008, Vol. 3, No. 13 |
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FRONT COVER
"Rare Penguin in Black" —Melanism, or abnormally dark plumage, is caused by an increase in the amount of eumelanin present in the feathers. It has been observed in Adélie, chinstrap, gentoo, king, macaroni and royal penguins. Ornithologist-author Frank Todd has photographed a partially-melanistic emperor penguin with a chick. Melanism appears to be exceedingly rare in penguins, with only a few examples ever seen in any species. This highly unusual chinstrap was photographed at Deception Island’s Baily Head rookery on 12 January 2008 at 1815 local time during a visit by the 48 passengers aboard |
Professor Multanovskiy, operated by Quark Expeditions. The penguin was standing in a shallow pond behind the beach and proceeded inland toward the large "ampitheatre" rookery.
Remarkably, a melanistic chinstrap—almost certainly the same bird—was seen on 11 January 2008 at 1100 at Half Moon Island, some 75km away, by shipboard ornithologist Chris Wilson and passengers aboard Spirit of Adventure, operated by Saga Shipping. Wilson said that the melanistic bird’s presence seemed to disturb nearby penguins: “The other penguins really appeared not to like it at all.”
Much more common than melanism is leucism, also called isabellinism. It is a form of partial albinism, where a uniform lightening of pigmentation results in a greyish-yellow or beige coloration instead of black. Leucism is caused by a genetic inability to produce melanin. S.C. Forrest and R. Naveen estimated in 2000 (Waterbirds 23: 283-285) that leucism occurs in penguins of the Antarctic Peninsula at a rate of about 1 in 20,000 in gentoos, 1 in 114,000 in Adélies, and 1 in 146,000 in chinstraps.
The Australian Antarctic Division’s website has several pages of photographs of “unusual penguins” (http://www.aad.gov.au/default.asp?casid=1693) including melanistic and leucistic penguins, a mixed species (chinstrap and Adélie) breeding pair photographed at Palmer Station by Chris Denker and Heidi Geisz, and a mottled king penguin seen at Gold Harbour, South Georgia in December 1998 by Rod Eime that somewhat resembles a Dalmation dog. (Photograph by Karin Lundstrom) -- Jeff Rubin.
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BACK COVER
"Rare Penguin in White" —It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No wait, it is a bird! A rare, one-in-a-million bird to be specific. Meet Snowdrop, an albino African penguin, hatched alongside a regular black-and-white sibling at a zoo in Bristol, Great Britain, in November, 2002. He is the first albino African penguin to have been born in captivity and was hand-reared by Nigel Simpson (shown here at mealtime with his charges). Albinism is a simple mutation resulting from recessive genes carried by both parents who may look perfectly normal and, in Snowdrop’s case, is the reason for his all-white plumage, pink feet, pale beak and red eyes. Duncan Bolton, curator at Bristol Zoo Gardens, stated that there have been only two recorded sightings of albino penguins in the wild. African penguins live in a small area around the coasts of South Africa. (Photo by Adrian Pingstone, August 2003)
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CENTERFOLD
One of many photographs of the Aurora Borealis, taken by Bjorn Jorgensen (www.arcticphoto.no), that were featured in the July 2008 Polar Times magazine.
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