African Penguin
Spheniscus demersus

The Minnesota Zoo is thrilled to announce the hatching of its first endangered African penguin chick. Learn More.

African penguins rely on warm, sunny beaches to nest. But they spend most of their lives swimming in the cold, nutrient-rich waters flowing up from Antarctica.

What They Eat
African penguins eat sardines by the dozens. They may also snack on squid, anchovies, and other small animals, but their success relates directly to their ability to find fatty, nourishing sardines.

Where They Live
African penguins live in the cold ocean off the southern coast of Africa. They move to the beach mostly to mate, nest, raise young, and molt.

What They Do
They may swim 30 miles off the coast and spend days at a time gorging on dense schools of their favorite fish.

How They’re Doing
African penguins, like most other penguin species, are endangered in the wild. Oil spills, historical hunting, and destruction of their habitat have killed 80% of the population in the last 50 years. Right now, the greatest source of their troubles comes from a catastrophic drop in the number of sardines as a result of overfishing and changing ocean climate.

Come learn more about our penguins in our Penguin Encounter program.

African Penguin
Spheniscus demersus

Penguins eat fish equaling almost 15% of their body weight each day. For a 150 pound adult human, that would be like eating 22.5 pounds a day.

Moving between the cold ocean depths and the hot beach, African penguins may experience a temperature change of more than 70 degrees F.

Penguins swim through the water at up to 15 miles per hour— faster than many fish can swim!

 

African Penguin
Spheniscus demersus

Range
African penguins are found exclusively in Africa. They currently nest on the southwest coast of Africa from Hollingsbird Island in Namibia to Algoa Bay in South Africa. Non-breeding birds can be found across Africa's southern shore, from Gabon to Mozambique, generally within 25 miles of land.

Habitat
African penguins live along Africa's southern shoreline in and around the cold, nutrient rich Benguela current. They breed and molt on rocky, offshore islands and secluded mainland sites in large groups. Penguins often have competition from the Cape fur seal for breeding sites and food resources. Penguins are better adapted for life in the oceans where they spend the majority of their time on the nesting and molting beaches. The Minnesota Zoo’s 3M Penguins of the African Coast exhibit is modeled after the Boulders Beach nesting area in South Africa.

Description
African penguins are medium-sized penguins. When fully developed, they are approximately 23 to 28 inches long and weigh between 4.4 to 9 pounds. These penguins have a black back, face, wings, feet and beak. The front of their torso is white with some black spots and a black stripe across their chest. White stripes run around their face to above their eyes. Juveniles have slate gray backs and lack the facial pattern that the adults have. Juveniles go through a molt at about 1.5 years of age, and at that point, are almost impossible to distinguish from older birds.

Diet
African penguins feed primarily on pelagic fish such as anchovies, sardines, horse mackerel and small fish. They are also known to eat crustaceans on occasion. Recent studies have found that the African penguin population’s ability to rebound after decades of loss is directly linked to the sardine population in adjacent seas: anchovies and other fish do not provide the high level of nutrition the penguins need. The collapse of the sardine fisheries in the last part of the 20th century is a major limiting factor in the penguins’ recovery.

Behavior
Reaching speeds of 12 mph while swimming after prey, African penguins can remain underwater for more than 2.5 minutes. They conserve energy while swimming by “porpoising” (alternating between jumping out of the water and swimming). A hunting group may venture 30 miles or more from the nest colony and spend several days at sea in search of food.

Lifespan
The average lifespan of an African penguin in the wild is 10-11 years. Birds in captivity routinely live into their 20s, and some birds have lived to be over 40 years old.

Molt
African penguins go through a complete, major molt each year: all their feathers are drop off at one time and grow back over a period of 15-20 days.

Breeding
African penguins reach sexual maturity in two to six years, typically in four years. They breed in nesting colonies usually found on coastal islands or select mainland beaches, where they dig shallow burrows under rocks, in sand, or under sparse vegetation. In the past, birds dug burrows in their own “guano” (bird excrement), but this has been mined extensively and there is little left to nest in. African penguins are monogamous, breeding with the same mate and generally returning to the same nesting colony year after year. The pair bond is reaffirmed at the nest colony.

African penguins can breed at anytime of the year, with the peak breeding season varying with location. In the Northwest, peak egg laying occurs in Nov/Jan; in the Southwest in May/June and in the East in Apr/June. African penguins normally lay two eggs; the incubation period is 38-40 days and the parents share equally in attending the nest. The chick will remain in the nest for 30 days. After 30 days the parents both go to sea to gather food and the chick is left at the colony. The chicks may form small crèches or remain alone until the parents return with food. Depending on the availability of food, the chick’s downy feathers will be replaced with juvenile plumage at 60 -130 days. Shortly after the juvenile plumage is attained, the adults abandon the chicks and the juvenile birds are left to learn how to forage and avoid predators on their own – this is one reason juvenile mortality is high.

Adaptations
African penguins have adapted to survive huge variations in temperature. Like all other penguins, they have a thick layer of fat under their skin and more densely packed feathers compared to other birds groups. Penguins, like all other birds, preen themselves using oily secretions to “waterproof” their feathers and help protect the penguins in cold water. These adaptations help prevent heat loss while swimming in near-freezing water.

While on land, unlike Antarctic species of penguins, African penguins have to contend with warm temperate conditions when they emerge from the water. They may experience a sudden temperature shift of more than 70 degrees F. or more. African penguins are capable of expelling heat by mouth breathing and evaporative cooling by exposing their feet. The birds avoid standing in the sun and spend the day time hours either foraging at sea, or in burrows on land.

Conservation
The African penguin population has declined dramatically since the beginning of the 20th century: in the last 50 years, the population has dropped 80 percent. There were approximately 1.5 million African penguins at the beginning of the 20th century; today that number has decreased to ~25,000 pairs of birds.

The species is now listed as “Endangered” under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. There have been a number of factors contributing to the African penguins’ decline. Historically, their breeding colonies were raided for their eggs and guano. The guano was harvested for use as fertilizer. Today these threats have largely been eliminated. Currently, the two most pertinent threats to the survival of the African penguin are the risk of oil pollution and competition with commercial fisheries for the pelagic fish. Overall, the lack of adequate food resources is a problem for the African penguin. Climate change may be responsible for the shift in their prey to areas outside of the penguins’ normal feeding range.

Excessive heat and no protection from the sun also takes its toll on young penguins. A major oil spill in 2000 threatened as much as 40% of the African penguin population. Predation by cape fur seals and sharks on penguins, as well as predation of the eggs and chicks by avian predators pose a danger to the survival of the African penguin. The introduction of domestic animals, such as cats, poses a threat to chicks and eggs on the mainland nest sites. Habitat loss due to human use is also a continuing threat. Conservation groups have become very effective in rescuing “oiled penguins” and deserted penguin chicks and returning them to the wild.

Miscellaneous
All penguins belong to the same Order, Sphenisciformes. There are 6 genera and approximately 17 species of extant (living) penguins and the African penguin is the only penguin native to Africa. It is the only order in Aves (birds) in which all the members are both flightless and aquatic.

The African penguin has a very distinct mating call, resembling the sound of a donkey. Hence, this penguin species is often referred to as the “Jackass penguin.”

Things You Can Do
The oceans are in trouble. You can help save them by buying from the Seafood Watch list of “Best Choice” sustainable seafood, including U.S. Pacific sardines.