GENERALINTRODUCTION i . o INTRODUCTION AIMS SYNONYMY HISTORICAL REVIEM AND ...

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1 G E N E R A L I N T R O D U C T I O N
.
o
i INTRODUCTION
1 .I AIMS
1.2 SYNONYMY
1 3 HISTORICAL REVIEM AND DISTRIBUI'ION
Penguins have been a source of great interest ever since the
first discovery in the late fifteenth century, by mopean explorers
venturing into the southern seas, of the strange creatures that were
neither fish nor fowl. They were killed in large numbers by early
seafarers in need of fresh food'and, like the great auks, their
counterparts in the northern hemisphere, which were also flightless
King-pi-opelled swimmers, many species of penguins were exploited for
their meat and eggs and also for their skins and blubber (~alia,1 962;
Sparks and Soper, 1967). Despite publicity arising largely from their
increasing popularity in zoos, protection for most species was not
achieved until the present century. Fortunately the size of maw
populationssavedthem from extinction, but new dangers in the form of
oil pollution (Ross, 1971 ), the accmlation of toxic chemical residues
( Sladen, Menzie and Reichel, 1966) and continuing illicit human predation
(warham, 1958) are threatening species in all zones, subtropical,
temperate and antarctic. Penguins which have not been conditioned to
fear man or his domestic animals, are bold and venturesome and show little
fear. Those that breed in dense colonies are therefore particularly
vulnerable. It is now recognised that it is not safe to assume that a
species is in no danger because it is still common.
The play habits of the smaller antarctic species are well known
and the fairy penguin has similar habits. A hand-reared juvenile,
raised in a house among dogs and cats was observed repeatedly teasing them
by tweaking their tails and playing like a kitten with a crumpled ball of
paper (see Plate I a and b). Fledgling fairy penguins at their natal
colorly were similarly seen chasing after rustling plastic bags, blowing
about in the wind. Euch behaviour by young penguins may help to fit them
for the serious business of hunting for food when they first go to sea.
Because of their behaviour and their morphological adaptations
to an amphibious existence limited to the southern hemisphere, penguins
have long intrigued both laymen and scientists and much has been published,
especially on Antarctic species. Apart from brief descriptive notes, most
early publications concerning the little penguins in Australia, New Zealand
and adjacent islands, have dealt mainly with the problem of nomenclature
and the validity of the species included in the genus &d.yptula (see
Section 1.3).
Richdale (1940) was the first author to give a detailed account
which he states "is to be regarded as in the nature of a preliminary
surveyg1, of a group of ringed New Zealand southern little blue penguins,
which he observed at frequent, often daily intervals throughout one
breeding season. This author comments: "The tendency for New Zealand
writers on ornithology in the past has been to make briefvisits to
various colonies, following which papers have been written and conclusions
drawn from insufficient data. The result has been the publication of a
number of incorrect ideas concerning our New Zealand birdst1.
Twenty years later Kinsky (1 959 and 1960) published the results
of his observations of the New Zealand northern blue penguin in the
hbllington Harbour area "during the 1954-55 nesting season, and during a
more intensive study made by regular weekly visits from August, 1956, to
March, 195811.. Both Richdale and Kinsky describe the breeding behaviour
of the little penguins and include some graphs and tables which had
previously been lacking in the literature.
In 1968, on the mainland of Australia, an' extensive programme of
banding of the fairy penguin was commenced in the Summerland Penguin
Reserve on Phillip Island, Victoria, the site of the famoue Penguin Parade
(~eilly,1 972). This has provided much valuable publicity for the
penguins, since the concrete grandstand has enabled thousands of people to
view by floodlight, the organised ascent of penguins to their breeding
grounds. By June 1973, teams of workers belonging to the penguin study
group (VORG), had banded over 3,000 birds, &nly chicks, and had
investigated natural burrows and gradually replaced these with artificial
ones in a selected study area (Reilly and Balmford, 1969, 1971, 1972 and
1974). In the second report of the penguin study group it is stated:
'With the routine inspection of burrows taking place at weekly intervals,
certain 1Mtations occur in the collection of datat1, and in the third
.....
report that the group "maintained its study for three consecutive
years, with visits at weekly intervals over most of the period. Since
.. " .
April 1971, visits are being made only once every four weeks..
In his contribution to Advances in Ecological Research,
Stonehouse (1 967) writes: The terrestrial ecology of Antarctic and sub-
.....
Antarctic penguins is fairly well known..... The ecology of penguins
in temperate latitudes is less well documented; few populations have
received the undivided attention of ecologists for as much as a single
breeding season...... There i s no definitive ecological account of Little
~ l u epe nguins from their sub-tropical Australasian habitats". He adds:
"A full taxonomic review of the penguins, especially of the controversial
and interesting genera kcbrptes and kdyptula, is long overdue".
1.1 AIMS
At the commencement of the present study in December 1958, no
investigation of the terrestrial ecology of the fa* penguin had been
undertaken either in Tasmania or on the mainland of Australia. A
Programme of intensive observations was therefore devised with the aim of
continuing and extending the work commenced by Richdale and Kinsb in New
Zealand and of enabling a comparison to be made between the behaviour of
hdyptula at breeding grounds in Southern Tasmania with that of this genus
at breeding grounds elsewhere in Australasia.
During four years of intensive stu*, following preliminary
investigations in the 1958-59 season, many breeding birds were observed
daily and nightly over extended periods, particularly at the egg-laying,
hatching and early chick stages and never less than biweekly throughout
four breeding seasons. Seven consecutive months of one year were spent
camping and living among the penguins. Without such intimate contact and
frequent observations, errors in the interpretation of data would have
been inevitable. It is likely that other workers may have been misled by
the behaviour of little penguins at colonies visited at infrequent
intervals, especially where the penguins have been subjected to artificial
conditions and observed by teams of different individuals. In some cases
conclusions have been drawn which may not apply to the normal terrestrial
ecology of these birds.
In this thesis, details are given of various problems
confronting penguins at the breeding grounds studied and each section has
.
been followed by detailed discussions and conclusions so that the final
conclusions are necessarily brief. An attempt has been made to determine
the extent to which the fairy penguin is adapted to and thriving in its
environment in Southern Tamania, particularly in view of the fact that
this environment is continually changing, with the gradual encroachment
of civilisation. The lapse of time since the commencement of the
present study has provided an opportunity to observe the effects of this
encroachment.
minor -
Aptenodytes Forster, J.R. Historia Aptenodytae
a.
9.E .
Generis Avium, Scient.
w.,
3: 1 7 - 1 8 1781.
-
Little Pinguin ~etham,J . General Synopsis of Birds,
London, 3 (2): 572-573, pl. 103, 1785.
minor -
Aptenodyta Bonnaterre, P. J. and Vieillot, L.P.
Tableau mcyclopedique et Methodique
des Trois Regnes de la Nature:
Omithologie, Paris, 1: 68, pl. 17,
fig. 1, 1790.
minor -
Spheniscus Tennninck, C. J. Manuel d'Grnithologie,
2nd ed., Paris, 1 : cxii-cxiii, 1820.
-
New Holland Pinguin Latham, J. General History of Birds,
Winchester, 10: 388, 182b.
minor -
Chrysocoma Stephens, J.F. in Shaw, G., General
Zoolow, London, 13 (1 ): 61-62,
1825-1 826.
-
Bheniscus novaehollandiae Stephens, J.F. in Shaw, G., General
Zoology, London, 13 (1): (8,
1825-1 826.
-
Aptenodytes australis Gray, J.E. in Griffith, E., A n b l
Kingdom (translation of ~uvier),
8: 563, 1829.
-
Aptenodytes undina Gould, J. Birds from Australia,
- -
Eudxptes minor Gray, G.R. List of the Specimens of
Birds in the British ksewn, London,
3: 1 18U.
-
Spheniscus undina Gould, J. Birds of Australia, London,
7: 85, 18L8.
-
Endyptula minor Bonaparte, C. L. J. L. Gallinarium
Conspectus Systematicus, Comptes
_
-
rendus llAcad. des. Sci. Paris
-J
L2: 775, 1856.
-
hdy-ptula undina Ibid.
-
Eudyptila undina Gray, G.R. Handlist of the Genera and
Species of Birds in the British ksewn,
3: 99, 1871.
-
Endyptila minor Ibid.
-
&&utula minor novaehollandlae Mathews, G.M. Birds of Australia,
1: 281, pl. 66, 1910-11.
1.3 HISTORICAL REVIEW AND DISTRIBUPION
The earliest known record of the little or fairy penguin i s the
description by Forster (1 781 ) of a specimen collected by Captain Cook from
ksky Bay, Queen Charlotte Sound, New Zealand in 1773. In his Historia
Aptenodytae Forster lists nine species of penguins and includes them all
- -
in the single genus Aptenodytes. A. minor is accepted as one of four
valid new species. A further account of the New Zealand form, including
descriptions of its appearance and of its "place and manners" was given by
Latham (1785) under the heading Little Pinguin. Subsequently, in 1825,
Stephens quoted Latham's description in full and applied the name
-
Chrysocoma minor to it (91aw and Stephens, 1825-26), but Stephen's genus
Chrysocoma is merely a synonym of the genus bdyptes, previously
instituted by Vieillot (1816) and now accepted as valid for the whole
group of crested penguins (Coues, 1872). Meanwhile Tenrminck (1820) gave
a general description of the genus Spheniscus, instituted by Erisson (1760)
A. minor
and listed the species Aptenodytes demersus and below, evidently
intending to transfer them to the older genus. Some mrkers, such as
Ogilvie-Grant (1898) attribute the first use of the name S~heniscusm inor
to G.R. Gray. However, in his List of the birds recorded as found in New
Zealand, Chatham and Auckland Islands, which was included in J.E. Gray's
chapter on the fauna in Dieffenbach's Travels in New Zealand, G.R. Gray
himself cites Tednck as his authority for the use of the name %heniscus
-
minor (Dieffenbach, 18b3).
The first account of the Australian form of the little penguin is
Lathamts description of a drawing made at Port Jackson, N.S.W. (Latham,
182b). This is quoted as follows:
"6.4EW-HOLLAND PINOUIN.
LENGTH two feet or more. B i l l black, the upper mandible
hooked at the tip, the under truncated; plumage above brown,
the feathers tipped with grey, giving a mixed appearance; chin,
throat, and the rest of the parts beneath rufous white; wings
as in other Finguins, and b r m ; legs pale flesh-coloured
brown; webs black.
Inhabits New-Holland, met with at Port Jackson, but is
--
scarce, called they Gur-r~o-mul~~.
According to Nicholls (1918) there is some doubt as to whether the
specimen thus described did in fact come from the Port Jackson district,
or whether it was brought here from some other part of Australia. In argr
case the drawing was later mislaid and according to Mathews (1910-11 )
Latham's account remained unrecognizable until the subsequent rediscovery
of the sketch. Meanwhile in 1825 Stephens assigned the name Spheniscus
novaehollandiae to Latham's description (Saw and Stephens, 1825-26).
Mathews (op.cit.) therefore claims that this should be accepted as the
earliest name available for the Australian form. It precedes the name
Avtenodytes australis proposed by J.E. Gray in 1829 and inserted,
together with an abbreviated version of Latham's account into the text of
Cuvier (1817) translated by Griffith, Pidgeon and J.E. Gray (1829).
In 18LL Gould described a specimen obtained from Circular Cape,
on the North West coast of Tasmania, which he believed represented a new
minor
species distinct fromthe form and to which he assigned the name
Aptenodytes undina. His account (Gould, 1844) is given below:
.. . .
"APTENODYTES UNDINA..
The *ole of the upper surface, flanks and upper surface of
the wings glossy light blue, with a narrow stripe of black down
the centre of each feather, the black being broadest and most
conspicuous on the back; all the under surface of the body,
under side and inner margin of the upper side of the wing and
inner webs of the tail feathers silb white; bill reddish brown
beneath, black above, feet yellowish bite.
:.
Total length 13$ inches; bill la; tarsi