Snares Penguin

Fascinating facts about the Snares Penguin

• At just 50–70 cm tall and 2.5–4 kg heavy, the Snares penguin carries a bright yellow crest that stands out against its black-white tuxedo, and its bill has a pink-skinned base.
• Colonies can range from about ten nests to around 1,200 nests under forest canopy or on bare rock on the Snares Islands, and vegetation at nesting sites can die off, prompting the birds to relocate.
• Stomach analyses show krill make up about 60 % of the penguin’s meal by mass, fish around 30 %, and cephalopods roughly 10 %, though another study nudged those numbers to 55 % krill, 24 % fish, and 21 % squid. This diet mix tells us the birds are flexible hunters, balancing what the ocean offers rather than sticking to a single prey type.
• During the breeding season, males embark on two-week foraging trips that dive as deep as 120 m, timed with spring plankton blooms, while females make shorter trips of less than a week and, during chick-rearing, perform shallow dives averaging 20–40 m to feed chicks.
• The second egg laid is up to 85 % larger than the first and hatches first, a reversal of the usual bird pattern; the tiny first-laid egg often fails to survive, a phenomenon called siblicide. This extreme egg-size dimorphism lets parents invest heavily in the chick most likely to thrive, illustrating a bold reproductive gamble in a constrained environment.

At a glance

About the Snares Penguin

The Snares penguin (Eudyptes robustus), known in Māori as Pokotiwha, is a striking yellow-crested bird that inhabits the remote Snares Islands off the southern coast of New Zealand’s South Island. Measuring 50–70 cm in length and weighing 2.5–4 kg, it sports dark blue-black upper parts, a white belly, and a bright yellow eyebrow-stripe that sweeps over a drooping crest. Its large red-brown bill is framed by a patch of bare pink skin at the base, a subtle cue that separates it from its close relative, the Fiordland penguin. Colonies range from a handful of nests to as many as 1 200, tucked beneath the Olearia forest canopy on North East Island or perched on the rocky Western Chain, where birds dig shallow, grass-lined hollows and line them with mud to keep the eggs dry.

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