Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Eu­dyp­tula minor is found through­out the south­ern coast of Aus­tralia and as far north as the South Soli­tary Is­land off the coast of New South Wales. They are also na­tive to the coasts of New Zealand. (Hoskins, et al., 2008)

Eu­dyp­tula minor has six rec­og­nized sub­species. E. m. no­vae­hol­lan­dia is ge­o­graph­i­cally lo­cated in Aus­tralia. The other five sub­species, E. m. iredaei, E. m. vari­abilis, E. m. al­bosig­nata, E. m. minor, E. m. chathamen­sis, are dis­trib­uted around the coun­try of New Zealand. (Davis and Ren­ner, 2003)

• Biogeographic Regions
• australian
  • native
• pacific ocean
  • native

Habi­tat

When on land, Eu­dyp­tula minor in­hab­its coastal habi­tats with good nest­ing con­di­tions. Lit­tle pen­guins nest in bur­rows dug in bare sand or under veg­e­ta­tion. If the ground is too soft to hold a bur­row, these pen­guins also nest in caves and rock crevices. Habi­tats in­clude rocky coast­line, sa­vanna, scrub for­est or forests. Lit­tle pen­guins are ma­rine seabirds and spend the ma­jor­ity of their lives swim­ming un­der­wa­ter. (Rop­ert-Coud­ert, et al., 2009)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate
• saltwater or marine

• Terrestrial Biomes
• chaparral
• scrub forest

• Aquatic Biomes
• coastal

• Other Habitat Features
• caves

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

As the small­est pen­guin in the world, this flight­less bird stands at an av­er­age height of 30 cm and has a weight of 1.1 to 1.2 kg. It has a black bill with an av­er­age length of 35 mm and eyes rang­ing from sil­ver to blue, grey, and hazel. Its chin and throat are white along with the un­der­side of its flip­pers and torso. The top of the head, neck and dor­sal side of its flip­pers and torso are an in­digo-blue. The color of the pen­guin’s feath­ers can be­come duller with age, and the color of their un­der­sides can range from white to gray to brown. Sex­ual di­mor­phism is not pro­nounced in this species. Males are larger and have longer and deeper bills than fe­males. Males have an av­er­age bill length of 35.7 mm and an av­er­age bill depth of 15.4 mm. Fe­males have an av­er­age bill length of 34.5 mm and an av­er­age depth of 14.1 mm. Flip­per length is sim­i­lar in both gen­ders with an av­er­age of 117.5 mm.

Ju­ve­niles have a dor­sal plumage that is a brighter light blue than the in­digo-blue of the adults. The ju­ve­niles also have thin­ner and shorter beaks. (Davis and Ren­ner, 2003; Overeem, et al., 2008; Williams, 1995)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• homoiothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• sexes alike
• male larger

• Range mass

  1.1 to 1.2 kg

  2.42 to 2.64 lb

• Average length

  30 cm

  11.81 in

Re­pro­duc­tion

Courtship be­gins with male lit­tle pen­guins per­form­ing courtship dis­plays and giv­ing mat­ing calls. A male will hold his body in an up­right po­si­tion with flip­pers above his back, neck stretched, and head up­right fac­ing the sky. The male then emits a bray­ing sound. These dis­plays may be per­formed alone or in a group of un­mated males. Oc­ca­sion­ally the male will per­form in front of a nest he con­structed. After a fe­male chooses a male, they per­form a dis­play to­gether. One in­di­vid­ual stands up­right and spreads its flip­pers with head bowed, which sig­nals the other bird to fol­low and they walk in small cir­cles around the nest, bray­ing as they go. After this dis­play by male and fe­male, cop­u­la­tion takes place.

Lit­tle pen­guins form monog­a­mous pairs and re­ten­tion of mated pairs from year to year is high in this species. Pairs are likely to split up only after an un­suc­cess­ful nest­ing at­tempt or death. (Davis and Ren­ner, 2003; Williams, 1995)

• Mating System
• monogamous

Lit­tle pen­guins breed from June to Oc­to­ber in loose colonies. They may nest in ground bur­rows, rocky cliffs or caves, where they lay a clutch of 1 to 2 eggs. The eggs are smooth and white in ap­pear­ance. They have an av­er­age weight of 53 g and an av­er­age di­am­e­ter of 42.0 mm. In­cu­ba­tion oc­curs for 31 to 40 days and the newly hatched chicks are an av­er­age weight of 36 to 47 g. The chicks are semi-al­tri­cial thus are born with downy feath­ers, re­quire brood­ing, are un­able to leave the nest, and are un­able to feed them­selves. After the young hatch, the next 18 to 38 days are termed the "guard pe­riod" for pen­guins dur­ing which time both par­ents brood the young, trad­ing off every 3 to 4 days. After the ini­tial guard pe­riod, the par­ents relax their du­ties and guard chicks only at night. Fledg­ing oc­curs when the chick is 50 to 65 days old and at this time it has grown to be­tween 800 g to 1150 g. Ju­ve­niles reach full in­de­pen­dence at 57 to 78 days old. Most ju­ve­nile pen­guins reach re­pro­duc­tive ma­tu­rity at 3 years old. (Davis and Ren­ner, 2003; Williams, 1995)

The breed­ing cycle of Eu­dyp­tula minor is vari­able de­pend­ing on nest­ing lo­ca­tion and many other en­vi­ron­men­tal fac­tors. Nu­tri­tion, age, breed­ing date can in­flu­ence the tim­ing of the breed­ing cycle and nest­ing suc­cess. A lack of nu­tri­tion has been shown to delay the breed­ing process. The prob­a­bil­ity of breed­ing suc­cess also in­creases with age. This trend is at­trib­uted to the fact that older pen­guins have more ex­pe­ri­ence, which in­creases the chance of fledg­ling sur­vival. Lit­tle pen­guins can lay mul­ti­ple clutches if the first clutch was a fail­ure or if the adults raised their first fledg­lings early in the breed­ing sea­son. (Heber, et al., 2008; Knight and Rogers, 2004; Nis­bet and Dann, 2009)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• oviparous

• Breeding interval

  Little penguins breed once a year, however, they do have the ability to lay an additional clutch.

• Breeding season

  The breeding season usually occurs from June until December, but may vary geographically.

• Range eggs per season

  1 to 2

• Average eggs per season

  2

• Range time to hatching

  31 to 40 days

• Range fledging age

  50 to 65 days

• Range time to independence

  57 to 78 days

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  3 years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  3 years

Both sexes take re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in the breed­ing process. Both male and fe­male pen­guins may build their nest to­gether, but the male may have a greater role in phys­i­cally build­ing the bur­row. The fe­male often takes on a larger role in the in­cu­ba­tion stage, but the male still helps by ex­chang­ing du­ties with the fe­male every 3 to 4 days. After chicks are born, both par­ents con­tinue to brood the young dur­ing the "guard pe­riod." Again, par­ents swap guard­ing du­ties every 3 to 4 days so that one broods the chicks while the other for­ages. After sev­eral weeks, par­ents de­crease guard­ing time to only at night. Chicks fledge after 50 to 65 days at which time they leave the nest and do not re­turn for sev­eral days. Ju­ve­niles reach in­de­pen­dence from their par­ents at 57 to 78 days old. (Williams, 1995)

• Parental Investment
• altricial
• male parental care
• female parental care
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • male
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • male
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
    • female
• pre-independence
  • provisioning
    • male
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
    • female

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Lit­tle pen­guins live an av­er­age of 6 years. How­ever a banded lit­tle pen­guin has been re­cap­tured the age of 25 years and 8 months old. Data on the lifes­pan of the bird in cap­tiv­ity could not be found. ("Lit­tle Pen­guin, Eu­dyp­tula minor", 2009; Nis­bet and Dann, 2009)

• Range lifespan
  Status: wild

  25.6 (high) years

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  6 years

Be­hav­ior

Eu­dyp­tula minor has over a dozen dif­fer­ent ag­gres­sive be­hav­ior dis­plays. These dis­plays can ul­ti­mately be di­vided into 4 dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories in­clud­ing sta­tion­ary warn­ing dis­plays, rapidly ad­vanc­ing to­wards the in­truder, brief phys­i­cal con­tact and phys­i­cal at­tacks. All four be­hav­iors in­clude a dif­fer­ent type of phys­i­cal dis­play and vo­cal­iza­tion.

The sta­tion­ary warn­ing dis­plays oc­curs when the threat is 1 to 3 m away from the pen­guin. The pen­guin spreads its flip­pers, hold­ing its body erect and giv­ing the in­truder a di­rect look ac­com­pa­nied by a loud vo­cal­iza­tion. When the pen­guin rapidly ad­vances to­wards the in­truder, it walks quickly or lunges to­wards the in­truder with a bray-like call. Brief phys­i­cal con­tact can range from touch­ing bills to slap­ping the in­truder with a flip­per. If the pen­guin is in its bur­row, it lunges out to peck the in­truder with its bill. If the in­truder does not re­treat, pen­guins re­sort to phys­i­cal at­tacks that in­clude bit­ing and beat­ing with flip­pers. (Williams, 1995)

Lit­tle pen­guins are con­sid­ered the most noc­tur­nal pen­guins, but gen­er­ally spend all day for­ag­ing at sea and re­turn to land to roost at dusk. In the breed­ing sea­son, pen­guins swim out only an av­er­age of 8 to 9 km from shore for about 12 to 18 hours at a time. These short trips are prob­a­bly be­cause chicks have a lim­ited abil­ity to ther­moreg­u­late and need to be fed con­stantly. Dur­ing the non-breed­ing sea­son, pen­guins can take long dis­tance trips of up to 710 km, but in most cases they con­tinue to stay within 20 km of shore. Lit­tle pen­guins have to use a greater amount of en­ergy to dive into the water than larger pen­guins, and al­though they can dive up to 67 m in depth, they mostly re­main within 5 m of the sur­face. When the pen­guins re­turn to shore from the sea, they pa­rade back to their nests in groups. In good breed­ing years, these pen­guins form these groups in a non­ran­dom fash­ion, seek­ing out the same in­di­vid­u­als they pa­raded with in the morn­ing to pa­rade back with at dusk. (Daniel, et al., 2007; Williams, 1995)

• Key Behaviors
• fossorial
• natatorial
• nocturnal
• motile
• sedentary
• territorial
• colonial

Home Range

Bur­row nests are usu­ally over 2 m apart in lit­tle pen­guin colonies. How­ever, when the pen­guins nest in caves the nests are often closer than 2 m apart. (Williams, 1995)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Eu­dyp­tula minor is a noc­tur­nal species and is highly vocal dur­ing the night while roost­ing. The sound of their calls can range from a low rum­ble to a trum­pet-like noise. Their song can be used for sev­eral func­tions, in­clud­ing at­tract­ing mates. Each lit­tle pen­guin has a dis­tinc­tive in­di­vid­ual song that is used by par­ents and sib­lings to dis­tin­guish one an­other from strangers. Calls can also be used with an ag­gres­sive in­tent against an in­truder around a pen­guin's nest.

Lit­tle pen­guins per­form unique courtship dis­plays. Males take a par­tic­u­lar stance, with heads fac­ing up and wings back, while bray­ing to fe­males. If the fe­male ac­cepts, she will join the male in a courtship "dance" where they march in cir­cles to­gether and make bray­ing calls.

Like all birds, lit­tle pen­guins per­ceive their en­vi­ron­ments through vi­sual, au­di­tory, tac­tile and chem­i­cal stim­uli. ("Lit­tle Pen­guin, Eu­dyp­tula minor", 2009; Jou­ventin and Aubin, 2000; Miyazaki and Waas, 2002; Nak­a­gawa, et al., 2001)

• Communication Channels
• visual
• acoustic

• Other Communication Modes
• duets

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

Food Habits

Eu­dyp­tula minor is mainly pis­civ­o­rous and em­ploys a pur­suit-div­ing tech­nique to catch prey in shal­low depths. The ma­jor­ity of its diet is com­posed of Clu­peiformes fish, such as an­chovies and sar­dines. The va­ri­ety of fish con­sumed de­pends on the lo­cal­ity of the pen­guin. This species also preys on small squid, oc­topi and crus­taceans. It has been ob­served that in re­cent years the num­ber of prey avail­able is de­creas­ing. This re­sults in longer for­ag­ing trips for the pen­guin, greater en­ergy ex­pen­di­tures, and can ul­ti­mately de­crease pop­u­la­tion sizes. (Hoskins, et al., 2008; Overeem, et al., 2008; Williams, 1995)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • piscivore

• Animal Foods
• fish
• mollusks
• aquatic crustaceans

Pre­da­tion

Key preda­tors of lit­tle pen­guins are in­tro­duced species. These in­clude dogs, weasels, rats, foxes and cats. Pa­cific gulls and King's skinks are nat­ural preda­tors that eat the eggs and young of lit­tle pen­guins. In an ef­fort to de­crease pre­da­tion, lit­tle pen­guins move in groups to and from the ocean. This anti-preda­tor tech­nique oc­curs a few hours be­fore dawn and a few hours after dusk when it is dark. As pen­guins are less mo­bile on land, mak­ing mass land move­ments under the cover of dark­ness is likely an­other method used to avoid pre­da­tion. De­spite these tech­niques, adult lit­tle pen­guins often fall prey to sharks, seals, and orca whales. (Daniel, et al., 2007; Overeem, et al., 2008; Williams, 1995)

• Known Predators

  • Dogs (Canis lupus)
  • Red foxes (Vulpes vulpes)
  • Weasels (Mustela)
  • Cats (Felius catus)
  • Rats (Rattus)
  • Pacific gulls (Larus pacificus)
  • King's skinks (Egernia kingii)
  • Orca whales (Orcinus orca)

Ecosys­tem Roles

Eu­dyp­tula minor plays mul­ti­ple roles in its ecosys­tem as a preda­tor and a host to par­a­sites. It preys on small fish, squids, oc­topi, or oc­ca­sion­ally crus­taceans and likely im­pacts these pop­u­la­tions. Lit­tle pen­guin eggs and chicks are food sources to local pop­u­la­tions of dogs, rats, cats, and other in­tro­duced preda­tors. Adult lit­tle pen­guins fall prey to sharks, seals, and orca whales and are a valu­able food source to these preda­tors. (Hoskins, et al., 2008; Williams, 1995)

In re­cent years, a new species of feather mite, In­gras­sia eu­dyp­tula, has been dis­cov­ered which is be­lieved to par­a­sitize Eu­dyp­tula minor. These mites eat preen­ing oil on the feath­ers of the pen­guin. (Mironov and Proc­tor, 2008)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

The pen­guin pa­rade of the Eu­dyp­tula minor is a pop­u­lar tourist at­trac­tion. It has been recorded that 500,000 tourists an­nu­ally come to watch the colony of pen­guins pa­rade to and from the water at Phillip Is­land. ("Lit­tle Pen­guin, Eu­dyp­tula minor", 2009; Overeem, et al., 2008)

This spe­cific species is also of great in­ter­est to sci­en­tists be­cause of their small sizes and the in­creased amounts of en­ergy needed to sur­vive, es­pe­cially in cold tem­per­a­tures. This sub­ject is im­por­tant in the study of ther­moreg­u­la­tion in en­dotherms, and the pen­guin's phys­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics allow sci­en­tists to use this pen­guin in com­par­isons with other en­dotherms. (Fal­low, et al., 2009; Thomas and Fordyce, 2007)

• Positive Impacts
• ecotourism
• research and education

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

There are no known ef­fects of lit­tle pen­guins on hu­mans.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Cur­rently Eu­dyp­tula minor is not con­sid­ered to be threat­ened by ex­tinc­tion. It is be­lieved that the global pop­u­la­tion of these birds av­er­ages around 1,000,000 in­di­vid­u­als. Their pop­u­la­tion is de­clin­ing, how­ever, due to in­tro­duced preda­tors, de­creas­ing pop­u­la­tions of prey and oil spills. The in­ten­sity of in­dus­trial fish­eries re­sults in low prey den­si­ties for pen­guins and other pis­ci­vores. Fac­tors such as human set­tle­ment, coastal ero­sion, and pol­lu­tion have also af­fected the breed­ing habi­tats of these birds. (Davis and Ren­ner, 2003; Overeem, et al., 2008)

The sub­species E. m. al­bosig­nata is now con­sid­ered en­dan­gered. It is only found on the Banks Penin­sula on South Is­land, New Zealand. (Davis and Ren­ner, 2003)

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• CITES

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Ash­ley Chung (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Phil Myers (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Rachelle Ster­ling (ed­i­tor), Spe­cial Pro­jects.

Ref­er­ences

2009. "Lit­tle Pen­guin, Eu­dyp­tula minor" (On-line). Parks & Wildlife Ser­vice, Tas­ma­nia. Ac­cessed March 19, 2010 at http://​www.​parks.​tas.​gov.​au/​index.​aspx?​base=5091.

Daniel, T., A. Chiara­dia, M. Logan, G. Quinn, R. Reina. 2007. Syn­chro­nized group as­so­ci­a­tion in lit­tle pen­guins, Eu­dyp­tula minor. An­i­mal Be­hav­iour, 74: 1241-1248.

Davis, L., M. Ren­ner. 2003. Pen­guins. New Haven and Lon­don: Yale Uni­ver­sity Press.

Fal­low, P., A. Chiara­dia, Y. Rop­ert-Coud­ert, A. Kato, R. Reina. 2009. Flip­per Bands Mod­ify the Short-Term Div­ing Be­hav­ior of Lit­tle Pen­guins. Jour­nal of Wildlife Man­age­ment, 73/8: 1348-1354.

Heber, S., K. Wil­son, L. Molles. 2008. Breed­ing bi­ol­ogy and breed­ing suc­cess of blue pen­guin (Eu­dyp­tula minor) on the West Coat of New Zealand's South Is­land. New Zealand Jour­nal of Zo­ol­ogy, 35: 63-71.

Hoskins, A., P. Dann, Y. Rop­ert-Coud­ert, A. Kato, A. Chiara­dia, D. Costa, J. Arnould. 2008. For­ag­ing be­hav­iour and habi­tat se­lec­tion of the lit­tle pen­guin Eu­dyp­tula minor dur­ing early chick rear­ing in Bass Strait, Aus­tralia. Ma­rine Ecol­ogy-Progress Se­ries, 366: 293-303.

Jou­ventin, P., T. Aubin. 2000. Acoustic con­ver­gence be­tween two noc­tur­nal bur­row­ing seabirds: ex­per­i­ments with a pen­guin Eu­dyp­tula minor and a shear­wa­ter Puffi­nus tenuirostris. Ibis, 142: 645-656.

Kato, A., Y. Rop­ert-Coud­ert, A. Chiara­dia. 2008. Reg­u­la­tion of Trip Du­ra­tion by an In­shore For­ager, the Lit­tle Pen­guin (Eu­dyp­tula Minor), Dur­ing In­cu­ba­tion. The Auk, 125/3: 588-593.

Knight, C., T. Rogers. 2004. Fac­tors in­flu­enc­ing fledg­ling pro­duc­tion in lit­tle pen­guins. Wildlife Re­search, 31: 339-344.

Mironov, S., H. Proc­tor. 2008. The Prob­a­ble As­so­ci­a­tion of Feather Mites of the Genus In­gras­sia (Anal­go­idea: Xo­lal­gi­dae) with the Blue Pen­guin Eu­dyp­tula minor (Aves: Sphenis­ci­formes) in Aus­tralia. The Jour­nal of Par­a­sitol­ogy, 94/6: 1243-1248.

Miyazaki, M., J. Waas. 2002. 'Last Word' Ef­fects of Male Ad­ver­tis­ing Calls on Fe­male Pref­er­ence in Lit­tle Blue Pen­guins. Be­hav­iour, 139/11-12: 1413-1423.

Nak­a­gawa, S., J. Waas, M. Miyazaki. 2001. Heart rate changes re­veal that lit­tle blue pen­guin chicks (Eu­dyp­tula minor) can use vocal sig­na­tures to dis­crim­i­nate fa­mil­iar from un­fa­mil­iar chicks. Be­hav­ioral Ecol­ogy and So­cio­bi­ol­ogy, 50: 180-188.

Nis­bet, I., I. Dann. 2009. Re­pro­duc­tive per­for­mance of lit­tle pen­guins Eu­dyp­tula minor in re­la­tion to year, age, pair-bond du­ra­tion, breed­ing date and in­di­vid­ual qual­ity. Jour­nal of Avian Bi­ol­ogy, 40/3: 296-308. Ac­cessed Feb­ru­ary 22, 2010 at http://​dx.​doi.​org/​10.​1111/​j.​1600-048X.​2008.​04563.​x.

Overeem, R., A. Peucker, C. Austin, P. Dann, C. Bur­ridge. 2008. Con­trast­ing ge­netic struc­tur­ing be­tween colonies of the World's small­est pen­guin, Eu­dyp­tula minor. Con­ser­va­tion Ge­net­ics, 9/4: 893-905.

Peucker, A., P. Dann, C. Bur­ridge. 2009. Range-Wide Phy­lo­geog­ra­phy of the Lit­tle Pen­guin (Eu­dyp­tula minor): Ev­i­dence of Long-Dis­tance Dis­per­sal. The Auk, 126/2: 397-408.

Rop­ert-Coud­ert, Y., A. Kato, A. Chiara­dia. 2009. Im­pact of small-scale en­vi­ron­men­tal per­tur­ba­tions on local ma­rine food re­sources: a case study of a preda­tor, the lit­tle pen­guin. Pro­ceed­ings of The Royal So­ci­ety, 276: 4105-4109.

Ser­gent, N., T. Rogers, M. Cun­ningh­man. 2004. In­flu­ence of bi­o­log­i­cal and eco­log­i­cal fac­tors on hema­to­log­i­cal val­ues in wild Lit­tle Pen­guins, Eu­dyp­tula minor. Com­par­a­tive Bio­chem­istry and Phys­i­ol­ogy - Part A: Mol­e­c­u­lar & In­te­gra­tive Phys­i­ol­ogy, 138/3: 333-339.

Thomas, ., R. Fordyce. 2007. The Het­erother­mic Loop­hole Ex­ploited by Pen­guins. Aus­tralian Jour­nal of Zo­ol­ogy, 55/5: 317-321.

Williams, T. 1995. The Pen­guins: Sphenis­ci­dae. New York: Ox­ford Uni­ver­sity Press.