King Penguin

The king penguin is the second-largest penguin species after the emperor penguin, breeding on subantarctic islands in the Southern Ocean, including South Georgia, the Falkland Islands and the Kerguelen Islands, where it forms some of the largest and densest penguin colonies in the world, numbering in the hundreds of thousands at some sites. It has striking orange-yellow patches on the ears and upper chest set against a black head and silvery-grey back, and unlike the emperor penguin it breeds in a milder subantarctic climate rather than on Antarctic sea ice. King penguins undertake deep dives, sometimes exceeding one hundred metres, in pursuit of fish and squid, and their breeding cycle is unusually long, taking over a year to complete, which means a pair typically raises only two chicks every three years rather than one every year. The species remains numerous and its population is generally considered stable, though it depends on continued access to productive Southern Ocean fishing grounds.