African Penguin

African Penguin Facts

Also known as the Black Footed Penguin, the African Penguin is one that many people enjoy viewing. They are about 11 pounds in weight and up to 27 inches tall. You will be able to easily identify them due to their physical characteristics. They are black in color along their head and their backside. One the belly the feature black spots and black lines.

If you observe these spots and lines, you will notice they are different for each one. This is a great way for researchers to be able to track the behaviors and movements of particular members of a colony of African Penguins.

African Penguin Habitat

The Southern coast of Africa is where you will find the majority of the African Penguins. There are 24 known colonies of them around this continent. There is no place else on Earth where this species of penguin is found.

This is one of the most calm types of penguins out there. In fact, in some of the viewing areas tourists can get extremely close to them in their natural environment without fear of an aggressive attack. It is reported that people can come within three feet of them before they will move away.

African Penguin Diet

The diet for African Penguins includes a variety of fish that are found along the coast of Africa. They include squid, sardines, anchovies, and pilchards.

Due to the unique patterns of black and white, the African Penguin is less likely to be found by predators in the water during their own hunting efforts.

African Penguin Reproduction

The African Penguin has not set breeding season. They can engage in it any time of the year. However, the majority of it ends up taking place in early February.

African Penguin females will lay two eggs and incubate them for up to 45 days with the help of her mate. They form lifelong mating rituals with one partner.

African Penguin Conservation

It is estimated that the African Penguin can live up to 10 years in the wild. This isn’t very long given that they don’t mature sexually until they are from 4 to 6 years of age. In the past 35 years the number of them has dropped from 1.5 million to less than 150,000.

In Africa, the eggs from these penguins are a very common source of food. Due to many living in poverty in this area there aren’t any controlled efforts or laws prohibiting it. As a result many of the eggs are removed before they have the chance for the young to develop.

Another problem is that their natural habitat continues to be destroyed. More than 19,000 of these penguins were killed due to an oil spill in 2000. As a result of all of these events they are currently listed with a status of being vulnerable.

African Penguin and Human Interaction

There have been some human interactions in an effort to help them survive. After that oil spill in 2000, many volunteers helped to move almost 20,000 African Penguins from the area. This way they could have sufficient time to clean up the oil as those penguins make the three week swim back to their natural habitat.

Others have been given tracking devices so that their movements can be monitored and information recorded. A couple of years ago an experiment was implemented on one that was losing his feathers. A wetsuit was created for this African Penguin so that he could survive until his own feathers grew back.