A wildlife photographer has captured remarkable photos of an ultra-rare all-black penguin that lacks the distinctive white belly.
Belgian photographer Yves Adams had just landed ashore at St Andrews Bay on South Georgia Island this month when a fellow photographer pointed out the unusual-looking bird. Adams, who was leading an expedition as a tour guide, then rushed onto the beach to capture photos of the king penguin in isolation before it was surrounded by other members of its large colony.
“It’s one out of a colony of hundreds of thousands of penguins that has this color morph,” Adams says. “I tried to follow the bird as it had just come up from the surf onto the beach. I knew I had little time to actually photograph that bird as it was heading towards the colony and you don’t want to disturb them when they’re all together.
The penguin’s rare coloration is due to something called melanism. It’s when an animal produces too much melanin, which causes the skin or feathers to be darker than normal. The all-black plumage is actually a disadvantage for the penguin, as the white belly is part of a camouflage technique called countershading — when a penguin is swimming, the dark back helps it blend in from above with the dark waters below, and the white belly helps it blend in from below with the bright sky above.
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