Penguin observations in Antarctica

This map plots penguin breeding colonies around the Antarctic continent, spanning the five species that breed there: Adélie, Chinstrap, Gentoo, Emperor, and Macaroni. Each circle marks a known colony location.

While Adélie (285 locations) and Emperor penguins (64 locations) are distributed along almost the entire coast of Antarctica, Gentoo, Chinstrap, and Macaroni penguin colonies are almost exclusively concentrated on the Antarctic peninsula.

Note that we did not include the King penguin counts, since they mostly include singular sightings rather than sustained colonies. King penguins largely breed on subantarctic islands (45-55°S) at the northern eaches of Antarctica and are therefore not included in this visual.

We also included only locations where penguins were counted. There are additional locations where penguin species were identified, but never counted. If there is no count associated, we did not include it.

Data was sourced from the MAPPPD (Mapping Application for Penguin Populations and Projected Dynamics) website created and curated by Oceanites.