Penguins | Spheniscidae

Pinguïns | Pingüinos | Penguins

The plumage is sharply two-toned: black or slate grey on the back and upper wing, white below, a countershading that hides the bird from above against dark water and from below against the light. The specific characters lie mainly on the head and breast: in Spheniscus one or two black breast bands, a white horseshoe-shaped line around the head and bare pink skin at the base of the bill and around the eye that sheds heat. The Humboldt Penguin breeds on the mainland coast and inshore islands along the cold Humboldt Current, in burrows dug into guano or sand or under boulders, with two eggs and an incubation of about forty days; the pair relieve one another and feed by day within a few tens of kilometres of the colony. The Magellanic Penguin, which breeds further south, reaches the coast of Peru only rarely. Under water they swim with wingbeats at over ten kilometres an hour and dive routinely to a few tens of metres.