Humboldt penguin
| Humboldt penguin | |
|---|---|
| At Islas Ballestas, Peru | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Sphenisciformes |
| Family: | Spheniscidae |
| Genus: | Spheniscus |
| Species: | S. humboldti |
| Binomial name | |
| Spheniscus humboldti Meyen, 1834 | |
| Distribution of the Humboldt penguin. 80% of the world's population lives in the protected areas of the Northern Chilean regions III and IV. | |
The Humboldt penguin (Spheniscus humboldti) is a medium-sized penguin. It resides in South America, its range mainly contains most of coastal Peru. Its nearest relatives are the African penguin, the Magellanic penguin and the Galápagos penguin. The Humboldt penguin and the cold water current it swims in both are named after the explorer Alexander von Humboldt. The species is listed as vulnerable by the IUCN with no population recovery plan in place. The current population is composed of 32,000 mature individuals and is going down. It is a migrant species.
Humboldt penguins nest on islands and rocky coasts, burrowing holes in guano and sometimes using scrapes or caves. In South America the Humboldt penguin is found only along the Pacific coast, and the range of the Humboldt penguin overlaps that of the Magellanic penguin on the central Chilean coast. It is vagrant in Ecuador and Colombia. The Humboldt penguin has been known to live in mixed species colonies with the Magellanic penguin in at least two different locations at the south of Chile.
The Humboldt penguin has become a focus of ecotourism over the last decades.