Crested penguins are the punk rockers of the penguin world, with spiky yellow eyebrows, red eyes and heavy orange-red bills. The rockhopper penguins pictured are among the smallest, 18-23 inches (45-58 cm) tall and 5-8 lbs (2-3.8 kg); the macaroni penguin is the largest of the group at up to 28 inches (70 cm).
There are seven or eight species, including the macaroni, royal, Fiordland, Snares and erect-crested penguins. The macaroni penguin is probably the most numerous penguin on Earth, with millions of pairs.
Crested penguins have a strange habit: they lay two eggs, but the first is much smaller and almost never hatches, and nobody is quite sure why.
Crested penguins breed on rocky sub-Antarctic and southern temperate islands, including the Falklands, South Georgia, Tristan da Cunha, Macquarie Island and the islands south of New Zealand. Rockhoppers nest on steep, rocky shores and cliffs, reaching their colonies by hopping up the rocks with both feet together.
Outside the breeding season they live at sea in the cold Southern Ocean for months at a time.
Crested penguins eat krill, squid and small fish, caught on dives that usually last a minute or two and reach 100-300 feet (30-100 m). Macaroni penguins eat more krill by weight than any other seabird.
They nest in noisy, crowded colonies where pairs defend tiny territories with loud braying and head-shaking. Males arrive first to claim nest sites, and pairs often reunite year after year.
After the chicks fledge the adults spend weeks feeding at sea, then return to land to molt, standing miserably without eating for three to four weeks while every feather is replaced.
The genus Eudyptes includes the southern, northern and eastern rockhoppers, the macaroni, royal, Fiordland, Snares and erect-crested penguins. Most are in trouble: the IUCN lists the northern rockhopper and erect-crested penguins as Endangered and the southern rockhopper, macaroni and Fiordland penguins as Vulnerable.
Rockhopper numbers have fallen by more than half since the 1950s. Warming seas and shifts in their food supply are the main suspects, along with oil pollution, fisheries and introduced predators.
