Animalia > Chordata > Aves > Sphenisciformes > Spheniscidae > Spheniscus > Spheniscus demersus

Spheniscus demersus (Jackass Penguin; African Penguin)

Synonyms: Diomedea demersa (homotypic)

Wikipedia Abstract

The African penguin (Spheniscus demersus), also known as the jackass penguin and black-footed penguin is a species of penguin, confined to southern African waters. It is also widely known as the "jackass" penguin for its donkey-like bray, although several related species of South American penguins produce the same sound. Like all extant penguins it is flightless, with a streamlined body, and wings stiffened and flattened into flippers for a marine habitat. Adults weigh on average 2.2–3.5 kg (4.9–7.7 lb) and are 60–70 cm (24–28 in) tall. It has distinctive pink patches of skin above the eyes and a black facial mask; the body upperparts are black and sharply delineated from the white underparts, which are spotted and marked with a black band. The pink gland above their eyes helps them to cop
View Wikipedia Record: Spheniscus demersus

Endangered Species

Status: Endangered
View IUCN Record: Spheniscus demersus

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
4
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
55
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 8.42495
EDGE Score: 4.3228
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Clutch Size [3]  2
Clutches / Year [2]  2
Fledging [2]  85 days
Incubation [6]  38 days
Maximum Longevity [7]  27 years 3 months
Snout to Vent Length [2]  27 inches (68 cm)
Water Biome [1]  Coastal
Adult Weight [2]  7.496 lbs (3.40 kg)
Birth Weight [3]  103 grams
Female Weight [5]  6.526 lbs (2.96 kg)
Male Weight [5]  7.297 lbs (3.31 kg)
Weight Dimorphism [5]  11.8 %
Diet [4]  Piscivore
Diet - Fish [4]  100 %
Forages - Underwater [4]  100 %
Female Maturity [2]  1 year 12 months

Ecoregions

Name Countries Ecozone Biome Species Report Climate Land
Use
Tristan Da Cunha-Gough Islands shrub and grasslands United Kingdom Afrotropic Temperate Grasslands, Savannas, and Shrublands    

Protected Areas

Important Bird Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Cape Floristic Region South Africa No
Succulent Karoo Namibia, South Africa No

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Canis mesomelas (Black-backed Jackal)[10]

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Parapsyllus humboldti[11]

Range Map

External References

Webcams


Monterey Bay Aquarium Penguin Cam
Cam Time:
Hours: - ( - )
Feeding: Dly ,

Vancouver Aquarium Penguin Cam
Cam Time:
Hours: - ( - )

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 2Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 3Terje Lislevand, Jordi Figuerola, and Tamás Székely. 2007. Avian body sizes in relation to fecundity, mating system, display behavior, and resource sharing. Ecology 88:1605
♦ 4Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 5Duffy, DC 1987. Ecological implications of intercolony size variation in Jackass Penguins. Ostrich 58:54–57
♦ 6del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
♦ 7de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 8Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 9Diet of the Humboldt penguin (Spheniscus humboldti) in northern and southern Chile, C. Herling, B. M. Culik, J. C. Hennicke, Marine Biology (2005) 147: 13–25
♦ 10Canis mesomelas, Lyle R. Walton and Damien O. Joly, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 715, pp. 1–9 (2003)
♦ 11International Flea Database
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0