Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Hum­boldt pen­guins are en­demic to the sub­trop­i­cal Pa­cific coasts of Chile and Peru. Their range ex­tends from Isla Foca in the north to Puni­huil Is­lands to the south. This area is lo­cated ad­ja­cent to the Hum­boldt Cur­rent, a large oceanic up­welling char­ac­ter­ized by cold, nu­tri­ent rich wa­ters. (Culik, 2001)

• Biogeographic Regions
• neotropical
  • native

Habi­tat

Hum­boldt pen­guins spend a ma­jor­ity of their time in coastal wa­ters. The amount of time the spend in water is as­so­ci­ated with breed­ing sta­tus. Non-breed­ing pen­guins spend an av­er­age of 60.0 hours in the water be­fore re­turn­ing to land with the max­i­mum trip last­ing 163.3 hours. Breed­ing pen­guins spend less time off­shore with trips av­er­ag­ing 22.4 hours with a max­i­mum of 35.3 hours. (Tay­lor, et al., 2004)

As is the case for many pen­guins, Hum­boldt pen­guins must come ashore to rest, breed, and raise young. The Pa­cific coast of South Amer­ica is char­ac­ter­is­ti­cally rocky and is also known for hav­ing large de­posits of guano. Pen­guins will choose such sites for nest­ing but will oc­ca­sion­ally use a cave along the shore. (Pare­des and Zavalaga, 2001)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate
• tropical
• terrestrial
• saltwater or marine

• Aquatic Biomes
• coastal

• Range depth

  61.8 (high) m

  202.76 (high) ft

• Average depth

  10.1 m

  33.14 ft

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Hum­boldt pen­guins are medium-sized, rang­ing from 66 to 70 cm in length and weigh­ing from 4 to 5 kg. They have black­ish-gray feath­ers on the back and white feath­ers on the chest. Hum­boldt pen­guins have black heads with white stripes under the eyes that wrap around the side of their head and con­nect at the chin form­ing a horse­shoe shape. Dis­tinc­tive of the species is a solid, black breast band that helps to dif­fer­en­ti­ate them from Mag­el­lanic pen­guins (Sphenis­cus mag­el­lan­i­cus). The solid breast band also helps in dis­tin­guish­ing adults from ju­ve­niles who have a darker head. (Berger, 2004)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• homoiothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• male larger

• Average mass

  4 to 5 kg

  lb

• Average length

  66 to 70 cm

  in

Re­pro­duc­tion

Hum­boldt pen­guins are monog­a­mous and rec­og­nize their part­ner in the colony through dis­tinct vocal cues. Al­though they are typ­i­cally monog­a­mous, in rare cases the fe­male will so­licit an­other male for mat­ing. Ex­tra-pair mat­ing is al­ways ini­ti­ated by the fe­male but the costs and ben­e­fits of this strat­egy are not well un­der­stood. (Schwarts, et al., 199)

An­other rare as­pect of the mat­ing of Hum­boldt pen­guins is that males may start usurps, de­fined as an un­paired male that in­vades the nest of an es­tab­lished pair. While this strat­egy is used to gain mates, there is risk of in­jury and even death of the in­vader. A sit­u­a­tion that might make usurpa­tion fa­vor­able in­cludes pe­ri­ods of low food avail­abil­ity that are char­ac­ter­is­tic of El Niño events. Re­search has shown that fe­males are dis­pro­por­tion­ately ef­fected at these times lead­ing to male-bi­ased sex ra­tios. With more males los­ing mates to mor­tal­ity, the rate of usurpa­tion may in­crease. (Tay­lor, et al., 2001)

• Mating System
• monogamous

Hum­boldt pen­guins can re­pro­duce nearly all year long due to the rel­a­tively warm on­shore cli­mate in the re­gion they oc­cupy. Breed­ing takes place be­tween March and De­cem­ber with peaks in April and Au­gust to Sep­tem­ber. Be­fore re­pro­duc­tion oc­curs pen­guins will molt. Dur­ing molt­ing, pen­guins stay on land and are in a fast­ing state for about two weeks. They will then go to sea to feed be­fore re­turn­ing to the breed­ing grounds to mate. (Pare­des, et al., 2002)

Hum­boldt pen­guins use cov­ered nests that pro­tect their eggs from both in­tense solar ra­di­a­tion, and aer­ial and ter­res­trial preda­tors. Of­ten­times pen­guins use the thick de­posits of guano found on the shore line to cre­ate their nests. They cre­ate bur­rows and de­posit their eggs safely in­side. Fe­males lay two, sim­i­lar sized eggs per clutch. After the eggs have been laid the male and fe­male will share the duty of at­tend­ing to the nest for the full ex­tent of the ap­prox­i­mately six week in­cu­ba­tion pe­riod. (Pare­des and Zavalaga, 2001)

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

• Breeding interval

  Many Humboldt penguins breed successfully twice a year

• Breeding season

  Humboldt penguins breed from March to December with peaks in April and August to September

• Average eggs per season

  2

• Range time to hatching

  40 to 42 days

• Range fledging age

  10 to 12 weeks

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  2 (low) years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  3 years

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  2 to 3 years

As men­tioned pre­vi­ously, both sexes watch and pro­tect the nest be­fore hatch­ing oc­curs. After the eggs have hatched, the par­ents share in the re­spon­si­bil­ity of feed­ing the chicks. Adults must pro­vide enough food at fre­quent in­ter­vals for chick sur­vival but his must be bal­anced with self main­te­nance. This bal­ance is met by switch­ing be­tween short for­ag­ing trips in order to feed the chicks and longer trips for main­te­nance. Tay­lor et al. (2001) showed that pen­guins rais­ing chicks gen­er­ally for­age dur­ing the day and make short, shal­low dives. Once molt­ing oc­curs, which marks the be­gin­ning of the ju­ve­nile stage, off­spring will go into the ocean to for­age on their own and are fully in­de­pen­dent. (Tay­lor, et al., 2004)

• Parental Investment
• 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

There is lit­tle known about the lifes­pan of Hum­boldt pen­guins. In­for­ma­tion from the wild is lack­ing, but Sea World re­ports that pen­guins live be­tween 15 to 20 years in their fa­cil­i­ties. It is thought that cap­tive pen­guins will live longer than wild pen­guins be­cause cap­tive pen­guins do not deal with preda­tors and also re­ceive a healthy, bal­anced diet. It is also noted that less than half of chicks make it past their first year of life.

• Typical lifespan
  Status: captivity

  15 to 20 years

Be­hav­ior

Hum­boldt pen­guins typ­i­cally molt in Jan­u­ary. Stud­ies have shown that this be­hav­ior is cor­re­lated with a spike in thy­roid hor­mones at the same time that sex steroid hor­mones are at their low­est con­cen­tra­tion. Molt­ing is the process of re­plac­ing old worn feath­ers with new ones. For pen­guins this is ex­tremely im­por­tant as they need their feath­ers for in­su­la­tion and to seal water out. Over the two week pe­riod that molt­ing is oc­cur­ring, the pen­guins will fast be­cause they are un­able to enter the water to for­age. (El­len­berg, et al., 2006; Ot­suka, et al., 2003)

Hum­boldt pen­guins have been found to be ex­tremely sen­si­tive to human pres­ence. Their breed­ing suc­cess was sig­nif­i­cantly re­duced at sites that were highly vis­ited by tourists. Heart rate dras­ti­cally in­creased with the pres­ence of a human at 150 me­ters away and it took 30 min­utes for the pen­guin to re­cover. This sen­si­tiv­ity to hu­mans may be due to a his­tory of being hunted. (El­len­berg, et al., 2006; Ot­suka, et al., 2003)

Hum­boldt pen­guins live in large colonies and are con­sid­ered highly so­cial ex­cept dur­ing for­ag­ing. For­ag­ing be­hav­ior is de­pen­dent on whether the adult pen­guin is rais­ing chicks or not. Pen­guins not rais­ing fledg­lings are able to ex­plore dif­fer­ent for­ag­ing habi­tats that are fur­ther away be­cause they are able to be away from the colony for longer pe­ri­ods of time. Pen­guins rais­ing fledg­lings rarely take overnight for­ag­ing trips and gen­er­ally ex­hibit a shal­lower, shorter dive. (Tay­lor, et al., 2004)

• Key Behaviors
• natatorial
• diurnal
• motile
• sedentary
• colonial

Home Range

Satel­lite mon­i­tor­ing of free rang­ing Hum­boldt pen­guins shows has found that 90% of all satel­lite lo­ca­tions came from a range of 35 km around their breed­ing ground with max­i­mum dis­tances of 100 km. These val­ues in­crease dur­ing El Nino events. Pen­guins will aban­don their nests and may for­age up to 895 km off­shore. These re­sults con­tra­dicts an ear­lier hy­poth­e­sis that Hum­boldt pen­guins are pri­mar­ily seden­tary and re­main close to the breed­ing ground year round. (Culik and Luna-Jor­quera, 1997; Culik, 2001)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

In­di­vid­u­als have vo­cal­iza­tions that are unique and dis­tin­guish­able by mates. Hum­boldt pen­guins dis­play three calls which in­clude the con­tact call, the dis­play call, and a threat call. In re­cent stud­ies, Hum­boldt pen­guins have been found to have an acute sense of smell. Odors cre­ate learned pref­er­ences to parental smells in chicks and are thought to play a role in so­cial and fam­ily in­ter­ac­tions. It is hy­poth­e­sized that be­cause of natal philopa­try, se­lec­tion fa­vors kin recog­ni­tion in order to avoid in­cest with sib­lings that were born in dif­fer­ent years and are there­fore un­fa­mil­iar. Hum­boldt pen­guins ex­plore un­fa­mil­iar scents but will re­turn to a fa­mil­iar scent and pre­fer it. There­fore, prior as­so­ci­a­tion of a scent likely al­lows for recog­ni­tion of nest-mates or colony mates. Fa­mil­iar scents may also be as­so­ci­ated with lo­cat­ing bur­rows at night. (Cof­fin, et al., 2011)

Hum­boldt pen­guins are be­lieved to use the same vi­sual mech­a­nisms as other pen­guins. They can­not per­ceive prey under low light con­di­tions. They ac­com­mo­date by de­creas­ing the ra­dius of cur­va­ture of the an­te­rior sur­face of their lens. They can see equally as well in the air and the water. The loss of corneal power under water is mit­i­gated by hav­ing a flat cornea and a spher­i­cal lens. This is also aided by ac­com­mo­da­tion. It was once be­lieved that pen­guins were my­opic in air but ev­i­dence from cur­rent stud­ies con­tra­dicts this. (Sivak, et al., 1987)

• Communication Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

Food Habits

Hum­boldt pen­guins spe­cial­ize on pelagic schools of fish. Pen­guins lo­cated in the north­ern re­gions of Chile ate al­most ex­clu­sively garfish those found in cen­tral Chile pre­ferred an­chovy, pilchard, and squid. The dif­fer­ence is be­lieved to be due to the avail­abil­ity of the dif­fer­ent prey types in the par­tic­u­lar for­ag­ing re­gions. Ad­di­tion­ally, Hum­boldt pen­guins con­sume Arau­can­ian her­ring and sil­ver­sides. (Hen­nicke and Culik, 2005)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • piscivore

• Animal Foods
• fish

Pre­da­tion

In the ocean, Hum­boldt pen­guins are pre­dated on by sharks, fur seals, and sea lions. On land, the nests are preyed on by feral cats, dogs, foxes, snakes, and ro­dents. In some cases, these preda­tors at­tack a ju­ve­nile or adult Hum­boldt pen­guin if it is of smaller size. In­su­lar pen­guins lack anti-preda­tory tac­tics to rats and feral cats due to their re­cent in­tro­duc­tion of these preda­tors on is­lands by hu­mans. To a lesser ex­tent, gulls are also known to pre­date nests. Hum­boldt pen­guins use guano to cre­ate bur­rows for their eggs that help to re­duce ex­po­sure to preda­tors. The large colonies that Hum­boldt pen­guins live in also pro­vide de­fense by num­ber. In the water, their main de­fense is their abil­ity to swim quickly and with agility. (Sime­one and Guillermo, 2012)

• Known Predators

  • sea lions (Otaria)
  • sharks (Chondrichthyes)
  • fur seals (Arctocephalus)
  • feral cats (Felis catus)
  • domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris)
  • foxes (Vulpes)
  • snakes (Serpentes)
  • rodents (Rodentia)

Ecosys­tem Roles

Hum­boldt pen­guins are one of the main preda­tors in the Hum­boldt cur­rent sys­tem. (Her­ling, et al., 2005)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Hum­boldt pen­guins were con­sid­ered an im­por­tant source of guano. Guano is a rich fer­til­izer and a major source of in­come for the Pe­ru­vian gov­ern­ment. (Pare­des, et al., 2003)

In re­cent years, eco­tourism has begun to focus on the species. How­ever, Hum­boldt pen­guins are shy and acutely sen­si­tive to human pres­ence. In 2010, reg­u­la­tions were es­tab­lished to as­sist with breed­ing suc­cess while main­tain­ing tourist ac­tiv­ity. (El­len­berg, et al., 2006)

• Positive Impacts
• ecotourism
• produces fertilizer

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

There are no known ad­verse ef­fects on hu­mans.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

The major fac­tors con­tribut­ing to de­creases in Hum­boldt pen­guin pop­u­la­tions are fish­ery ac­tiv­ity and human dis­tur­bances. Pen­guins are at risk of en­tan­gle­ment and drown­ing in fish­ing nets while fish­eries threaten food avail­abil­ity. Guano ex­trac­tion has also re­duced the breed­ing suc­cess of pen­guins. Guano re­serves are being formed in order to re­duce this threat to pop­u­la­tion vi­a­bil­ity. (Pare­des, et al., 2003)

• IUCN Red List

  Vulnerable
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Vulnerable
  More information

• US Federal List

  Threatened

• CITES

  Appendix I

Con­trib­u­tors

Heidi Niss­ley (au­thor), In­di­ana Uni­ver­sity-Pur­due Uni­ver­sity Fort Wayne, Mark Jor­dan (ed­i­tor), In­di­ana Uni­ver­sity-Pur­due Uni­ver­sity Fort Wayne, Tanya Dewey (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Ref­er­ences

Berger, C. 2004. Sphenis­ci­formes (Pen­guins). Pp. 147-158 in E Hutchins, A Evans, J Jack­son, D Kleiman, J Mur­phy, D Thoney, eds. Grz­imek's An­i­mal Life En­cy­clo­pe­dia, Vol. 8, 22 Edi­tion. De­troit, Michi­gan: Gale Vir­tual Ref­er­ence Li­brary.

Cof­fin, H., J. Wat­ters, J. Mateo. 2011. Odor-Based Recog­ni­tion of Fa­mil­iar and Re­lated Con­specifics: A First Test Con­ducted on Cap­tive Hum­boldt Pen­guins. PLoS ONE, 6.

Con­stan­tini, V., A. Guar­icci, P. Lar­ic­chuita, F. Rausa, G. La­ca­lan­dra. 2008. DNA Sex­ing in Hum­boldt Pen­guins from Feather Sam­ples. An­i­mal Re­pro­duc­tion Sci­ence, 106: 162-167.

Culik, B. 2001. Find­ing Food in the Open Ocean: For­ag­ing Strate­gies in Hum­boldt Pen­guins. Zo­ol­ogy, 104: 327-338.

Culik, B., G. Luna-Jor­quera. 1997. Satel­lite Track­ing of Hum­boldt Pen­guins Sphenis­cus hum­boldti in North­ern Chile. Ma­rine Bi­ol­ogy, 128: 547-556.

El­len­berg, U., T. Mat­tern, P. Sed­don, G. Luna Jorguera. 2006. Physi­co­log­i­cal and Re­pro­duc­tive Con­se­quences of Human Dis­tur­bances in Hum­boldt Pen­guins: The Need for Species-Spe­cific Vis­i­tor Man­age­ment. Bi­o­log­i­cal Con­ser­va­tion, 133: 95-106.

Hen­nicke, J., B. Culik. 2005. For­ag­ing Per­for­mance and Re­pro­duc­tive Suc­cess of Hum­boldt Pen­guins in Re­la­tion to Prey Avail­abil­ity. Ma­rine Ecol­ogy Progress Se­ries, 296: 173-181.

Her­ling, C., B. Culik, J. Hen­nicke. 2005. Diet of the Hum­boldt Pen­guin in North­ern and South­ern Chile. Ma­rine Bi­ol­ogy, 147: 13-25.

Ot­suka, R., T. Machida, M. Wada. 2003. Hor­monal Cor­re­la­tions at Tran­si­tion from Re­pro­duc­tion to Molt­ing in an An­nual Life Cycle of Hum­boldt Pen­guins. Gen­eral and Com­par­a­tive En­docrinol­ogy, 135: 175-185.

Pare­des, R., C. Zavalaga. 2001. Nest­ing Sites and Nest Types as Im­por­tant Fac­tors for the Con­ser­va­tion of Hum­boldt Pen­guins. Bi­o­log­i­cal Con­ser­va­tion, 100: 190-205.

Pare­des, R., C. Zavalaga, G. Bat­tis­tini, P. Ma­jluf, P. McGill. 2003. Sta­tus of the Hum­boldt Pen­guin in Peru, 199-2000. Wa­ter­bird So­ci­ety, 26: 129-138.

Pare­des, R., C. Zavalaga, D. Boness. 2002. Pat­terns of Egg Lay­ing and Breed­ing Suc­cess in Hum­boldt Pen­guins at Punta San Juan, Peru. The Auk, 119: 244-250.

Schwarts, M., D. Boness, C. Scha­eff, P. Ma­jluf, E. Perry. 199. Fe­male-So­licited Ex­tra­pair at­ings in Hum­boldt Pen­guins Fail to Pro­duce Ex­tra­pair Fer­til­iza­tions. Be­hav­ioral Ecol­ogy, 10: 242-250.

Sime­one, A., M. Bernal. 2000. Ef­fects of Habi­tat Mod­i­fi­ca­tion on Breed­ing Seabirds: A Case Study in Cen­tral Chile. Wa­ter­bird So­ci­ety, 23: 449-456.

Sime­one, A., L. Guillermo. 2012. Es­ti­mat­ing Rat Pre­da­tion on Hum­boldt Pen­guins in North-Cen­tral Chile. Jour­nal of Or­nithol­ogy, 153: 1079-1085.

Sivak, J., H. How­land, P. McGill-Harel­stad. 1987. Vi­sion of the Hum­boldt Pen­guin in Air and Water. Pro­ceed­ings of the Royal So­ci­ety of Lon­don. Se­ries B, Bi­o­log­i­cal Sci­ences, 229: 467-472.

Tay­lor, S., M. Leonard, D. Boness, P. Ma­jluf. 2004. Hum­boldt Pen­guins Change Their For­ag­ing Be­hav­ior Fol­low­ing Breed­ing Fail­ure. Ma­rine Orinthol­ogy, 32: 63-67.

Tay­lor, S., M. Leonard, D. Boness. 2001. Ag­gres­sive Nest In­tru­sions by Male Hum­boldt Pen­guins. The Con­dor, 103: 162-165.

Wal­lace, R., J. Dubach, M. Mar­garet, N. Keuler, E. Diebold, k. Grzy­bowski, A. Teare, M. Willis. 2008. Mor­pho­me­t­ric De­ter­mi­na­tion of Gen­der in Adult Hum­boldt Pen­guins. Wa­ter­bird So­ci­ety, 31: 448-453.