Magellanic Penguin

Magellanic penguins are medium-sized penguins which grow to be 61–76 cm (24–30 in) tall and weigh between 2.7 and 6.5 kg (6.0 and 14.3 lb). The males are larger than the females, and the weight of both drops while the parents raise their young. Adults have black backs and white abdomens. There are two black bands between the head and the breast, with the lower band shaped in an inverted horseshoe. The head is black with a broad white border that runs from behind the eye, around the black ear-coverts and chin, and joins at the throat. Chicks and younger penguins have grey-blue backs, with a more faded grey-blue colour on their chest. Magellanic penguins can live up to 25 years in the wild, but as much as 30 years in captivity. Captain Eo, a male Magellanic penguin at the San Francisco Zoo, died in 2022 at the age of 40. Young birds usually have a blotched pattern on their feet, which fades as they grow up into adulthood. By the time these birds reach about ten years of age, their feet usually become all black. Like other species of penguins, the Magellanic penguin has very rigid wings used to swim under water.

Magellanic penguins feed in the water, preying primarily on small pelagic fish (Argentine anchoita, silversides, Argentine hake, Falkland sprat, Southern blue whiting, rockcod), hagfish, cuttlefish, squid (Patagonian longfin squid, Gonatus antarcticus, shortfin squid), krill, and squat lobsters, and ingest sea water with their prey. Their salt-excreting gland rids the salt from their bodies. Adult penguins can regularly dive to depths of 20 to 50 m (66 to 164 ft) deep in order to forage for prey. During the breeding season males and females have similar foraging and diving patterns as well as diet composition, however bone tissue analysis suggests that diets diverge post-season when limitations imposed by chick rearing are removed. Magellanic penguins do not experience a severe shortage of food like the Galapagos penguins, because they have a consistent food supply being located on the Atlantic coast of South America. The presence of the large continental shelf in the Atlantic Ocean lets Magellanic penguins forage far from their breeding colony. Jellyfish including species in the genera Chrysaora and Cyanea were found to be actively sought-out food items, while they previously had been thought to be only accidentally ingested. Similar preferences were found in the Adélie penguin, yellow-eyed penguin and little penguin.

In 2016, videos of a Magellanic penguin who had befriended a Brazilian fisherman went viral. The fisherman had found the penguin close to death and covered in oil, and had nursed it back to health. In 2024, a movie of the story, My Penguin Friend, was released. The Penguin Lessons is a 2024 comedy-drama film that centers on a Magellanic penguin rescued from an oil slick.