Megadyptes is the genus of the yellow-eyed penguin, known in New Zealand by its Maori name, hoiho, which means noise shouter. It is a large penguin, 24-31 inches (60-79 cm) tall and 11-18 lbs (5-8 kg), with pale yellow eyes and a band of yellow feathers running from the eyes around the back of the head.
It is one of the rarest penguins in the world and the only living member of its genus. Its closest relative, the Waitaha penguin, lived on mainland New Zealand until about 500 years ago, when it was hunted out and the yellow-eyed penguin spread north to take its place.
Yellow-eyed penguins can live 20 years or more.
Yellow-eyed penguins live only in New Zealand: on the south-east coast of the South Island, on Stewart Island, and on the sub-Antarctic Auckland and Campbell Islands, where most of the population now breeds.
Unusually for a penguin, they nest in coastal forest and dense scrub, often well back from the beach, and each pair chooses a site out of sight of its neighbours.
They feed on small fish such as blue cod, opalfish, sprat and red cod, along with squid, caught on the sea floor. Yellow-eyed penguins dive to the bottom in water up to 400 feet (120 m) deep and may travel 15 miles (25 km) from the coast.
Yellow-eyed penguins are shy and do not form the packed colonies of other penguins. Pairs return to the same nest site year after year, lay two eggs and raise both chicks when food is good.
They leave for the sea at dawn and return in the late afternoon, and their loud trumpeting calls carry across the hillsides at dusk.
Megadyptes antipodes is listed by the IUCN as Endangered. Fewer than 200 pairs remain on the New Zealand mainland and the species as a whole numbers only a few thousand birds. Disease outbreaks among chicks, introduced predators such as stoats, cats and dogs, drowning in gill nets, disturbance by people, and warming seas have all taken a toll.
Reserves, predator trapping and a hospital for sick penguins in Dunedin are working to keep the hoiho from disappearing from the mainland.
