Wildlife Photographer Captures Ultra-Rare All-Black Penguin

A wildlife photographer has captured an ultra-rare photograph of an all-black penguin.

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.

The penguin was covered with black feathers and lacked the distinctive white belly and yellow patches that the species is known for.

“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.

“I was really lucky to get some photos of this penguin isolated before it got swamped by the other normal-colored penguins.”

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.

“Melanism is something that occurs very rarely within birds and mammals,” Adams says. “I’ve heard about it before in other species of penguins so I’ve wanted to see it for a really long time.”

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.

“I don’t believe anyone has seen this all-black penguin before,” Adams says. “The season has only just started on South Georgia, we were only the third boat to land there.

“I hope other people get to see it too. I was super excited to see a pure melanistic penguin as there are spotted or partly melanistic birds. From a distance the black is super black but when you get closer some of the markings on its neck and belly are like a metallic green.

“It was completely accepted by the other birds and his size wasn’t different in any way.”

This is actually Adams’s second time stumbling across a strange-looking penguin. Back in 2021, the photographer went viral online after capturing photographs of a never-before-seen yellow penguin in the same region.

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Image credits: Photographs by Yves Adams / Compass Media