Housemate in Antarctica photos: Penguins!

As I've mentioned before on numerous occasions, my boyfriend has been in Antarctica since October doing research for his PhD. While I've missed him like crazy, one of the perks of him being there is that he sends me awesome photos he's taken. Sometimes he even takes his computer out so I can video chat with the penguins and seals around the station. So I get to live vicariously a little through him. He's taken some pretty excellent photos, so I figured I'd share a few of them with you.

(Apologies for the watermarks. I don't care so much about my own photos, but these aren't mine, and I'm finding myself a little paranoid about them. I tried my best to be both obnoxious and unobtrusive...yeah, it was kind of difficult.)

Even though they can be found many places throughout the southern hemisphere, you can't help associating penguins with Antarctica. Four species of penguins nest in Antarctica, but unfortunately the most famous of the four, the majestic emperor penguin, does not nest in the region where the Housemate is living. So here are the other three.

Chinstrap penguins, or "chinnies", are probably my favorite. Easily identifiable by the chinstrap-like marking under their chins.

From his stories, they seem pretty cheeky; one jumped up onto the small boat the Housemate was on, and stood there for about ten minutes checking them out. I think many of the penguins in Antarctica are like that, though--without hundreds of years of hunting by humans, the animals don't have the same fear of us that animals on other continents have learned.

Adelie penguins. There's a whole colony of them near the station, so he gets to see a lot of these guys.


And in December, their eggs hatched!

Baby penguin! The chicks were hard to get shots of, because the parents were very protective. They had to be--if they slipped up, a skua would be there to swoop in and take off with the baby for its breakfast :(

Gentoo penguins have the white marks above their eyes.


On Wednesday: animals in Antarctica that aren't penguins!