Photo from open sources
Penguins are accepted as a joke to consider such dapper fashionistas: a white shirt front on the chest, a black tuxedo on the back. It remains to add a classic bow tie to this image, and get a real secular gentleman. However, as it turned out recently, not all penguins can boast such a spectacular appearance.
Creators of the popular British documentary series about nature “Dynasties” shot another video in Antarctica and unexpectedly stumbled among the ices of the south polar continent on an amazing individual – the emperor penguin, which has completely black plumage. TV people suggest that such a bird may be unique, that is, the only one on the planet. All over apparently, the reason for its unusual color is melanism. This rare mutation is characterized by an excess in the outer cover animal pigment melanin, resulting in the creature acquires dark look – “albino inside out”.
Emperor penguins are the largest in the world. Weight an adult can reach 45 kilograms! Black and white coloring reduces the visibility of these birds to predators such as killer whales and sea leopards, and also for fish – prey of the penguins themselves. So Thus, it is logical to conclude that the existence of this anti-albino far from the easiest: for predators the black penguin is always in sight, and potential prey runs from him. However, despite in contrast to its relatives, the bird survived to adulthood. Apparently pure black is not as shocking to the rest as pure white: after all, albinos most often suffer precisely from their relatives, which they literally squeeze from the light or just expelled from the pack and thereby doomed to an ambulance and inevitable death …
Antarctica Birds
