---
title: "What the sources say about the Chinstrap Penguin | AnimalTracks.wiki"
description: "45 claims from the Chinstrap Penguin profile, each beside the words of the source that backs it."
image: "https://animaltracks.wiki/images/animals/chinstrap-penguin-1.webp"
canonical: "https://animaltracks.wiki/animals/chinstrap-penguin/sources/"
---

# What the sources say about the Chinstrap Penguin (*Pygoscelis antarcticus*)

> 45 claims from the Chinstrap Penguin profile, each beside the words of the source that backs it. A "..." marks a cut in a quote and [brackets] an insertion.

Profile: [Chinstrap Penguin](https://animaltracks.wiki/animals/chinstrap-penguin/)

## Pygoscelis antarcticus (chinstrap penguin). Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan.

https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Pygoscelis_antarcticus/

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| at about 72 centimeters tall | They stand about 72 cm tall and weigh about 3.5 to 5 kg. |
| Roughly 95 percent of its diet is krill, topped up with small fish and other crustaceans | The Chinstrap's diet is quite simple and consists of small shoaling animals: krill, small fish and other roaming marine crustacea. Chinstrap penguins' prey is 95% krill and about 5% of the other species mentioned |
| Mostly krill (about 95% of the diet), plus small fish and other crustaceans | The Chinstrap's diet is quite simple and consists of small shoaling animals: krill, small fish and other roaming marine crustacea. Chinstrap penguins' prey is 95% krill and about 5% of the other species mentioned (note: stats.diet) |
| including the South Shetlands, South Orkneys and South Sandwich Islands | Mainly, you find them on the South Shetland Islands, South Orkney Island and South Sandwich (note: the island list, also used in stats.habitat) |
| males pump their chests and screech during courtship, and territorial disputes bring stares, pointing and charging. | Stares, pointing and even charging occur when the Chinstraps have territorial disputes. During courtship and mating rituals the male Chinstrap penguin communicates through pumping his chest several times ... He then emits a harsh loud screeching sound |
| The stone nests are typically about 40 centimeters across. | roughly circular consisting of stones and are typically 40 cm in diameter (note: the source adds that the nests are built on icebergs, which the page does not repeat) |

## Chinstrap penguin. Australian Antarctic Program.

https://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/animals/penguins/chinstrap-penguin/

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| 3.5 to 5.5 kilograms | Adult chinstraps weigh 3.5 to 5.5 kg. (note: AAP (updated 2024) is used over ADW's older 3.5-5 kg (page dated 2001) per docs/fact-check.md's 'check the date' rule) |
| the chinstrap is closely related to the Adélie and gentoo penguins, and roughly the same size as the Adélie | The chinstrap penguin is closely related to two other penguins, the gentoo (Pygoscelis papua) and the Adelie (Pygoscelis adeliae). Chinstraps are a similar size to Adelies. |
| caught on pursuit dives that use its flippers to "fly" through the water | They catch prey by pursuit-diving, using their flippers to 'fly' through the water. |
| Feeding dives generally stay shallow, under 40 meters, and tend to run deeper in daylight than at night | They generally feed in the ocean at depths of less than 40 metres, diving deeper in the daytime than at night. |
| Leopard seals are the main danger in the water, while on land sheathbills, skuas and southern giant petrels take chicks and eggs. | Leopard seals are the chinstrap's main predator at sea. On land, sheathbills, skuas and southern giant petrels take chicks and eggs. |
| Chinstraps breed mainly on snow and ice-free ground on the Antarctic Peninsula and on islands in the South Atlantic | Chinstrap penguins breed mainly on the Antarctic Peninsula and on islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. (note: 'snow and ice-free ground' is global-2020's term for a breeding site; the island list is claimed separately from ADW) |
| Chinstraps often toboggan on land, lying flat on their bellies, and they climb using all four limbs, jumping large distances between footholds. | Chinstrap penguins often toboggan on land - lying on their stomachs, propelling themselves by their feet, and using their flippers. They climb using all four limbs and are able to jump large distances to reach footholds. (note: the source lists tobogganing and climbing as separate behaviours, so the page states no sequence or purpose) |
| Pairs share incubation of two eggs in shifts of five to ten days at first, and chicks fledge at about seven to eight weeks. | laying two eggs in late November ... Both males and females take part in the 33 to 36 day incubation period. Initially shifts last 5 to 10 days ... The chicks fledge at about 7 to 8 weeks. |
| A wild chinstrap can live 16 to 20 years | Chinstrap penguins can live to be 16 to 20 years old. |
| The Australian Antarctic Program links the fall in chinstrap numbers to reductions in krill, their main food. | the number of chinstraps is declining significantly due to reductions in krill, their main food |
| They toboggan on land, lying flat on their bellies and pushing themselves along with their feet and flippers. They also climb using all four limbs, and can jump surprisingly large distances to reach the next foothold. | Chinstrap penguins often toboggan on land - lying on their stomachs, propelling themselves by their feet, and using their flippers. They climb using all four limbs and are able to jump large distances to reach footholds. |
| islands in the South Atlantic, including the South Shetlands, South Orkneys and South Sandwich Islands | Chinstrap penguins breed mainly on the Antarctic Peninsula and on islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. (note: stats.habitat reworded to match the body (task #635); the named islands are claimed on the body sentence from Strycker 2020) |
| weightKg: 4.5 | Adult chinstraps weigh 3.5 to 5.5 kg. (note: midpoint of the AAP range; Light class either way (task #635)) |

## Pygoscelis antarcticus. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2020: e.T22697761A184807209.

https://doi.org/10.2305/iucn.uk.2020-3.rlts.t22697761a184807209.en

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| the species as a whole is Least Concern | IUCN Red List category: Least Concern (LC). Pygoscelis antarcticus (Forster, 1781), IUCN taxon 22697761. |
| The IUCN Red List still rates the species Least Concern | IUCN Red List category: Least Concern (LC). Pygoscelis antarcticus (Forster, 1781), IUCN taxon 22697761. (note: faq 3; the 2020 assessment is the current one) |

## Libourel et al. (2023). Nesting chinstrap penguins accrue large quantities of sleep through seconds-long microsleeps. Science.

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adh0771

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| The seabird that nods off more than 10,000 times a day in naps that average four seconds, banking over 11 hours of sleep in each half of its brain while it guards the nest. | The penguins nodded off >10,000 times per day, engaging in bouts of bihemispheric and unihemispheric slow-wave sleep lasting on average only 4 seconds, but resulting in the accumulation of >11 hours of sleep for each hemisphere. (note: tagline; 'each half of its brain' glosses 'each hemisphere') |
| Microsleep architecture: nods off more than 10,000 times a day in naps that average four seconds, banking over 11 hours of sleep in each brain hemisphere while it stands guard against egg-stealing skuas. | The penguins nodded off >10,000 times per day, engaging in bouts of bihemispheric and unihemispheric slow-wave sleep lasting on average only 4 seconds, but resulting in the accumulation of >11 hours of sleep for each hemisphere. (note: stats.superpower; 'egg-stealing skuas' from the body's skua-predation claim, same reference) |
| Instead of sleeping in one long stretch, a nesting chinstrap penguin takes about three-quarters of its slow-wave sleep in bouts under ten seconds long. | the majority (75 %) of SWS was obtained via bouts lasting < 10 s (note: 'about three-quarters' for '75%') |
| While one parent is off at sea on a foraging trip that can last several days, the other has to guard the egg or chick against the brown skua, a predatory bird that preys on eggs left exposed at the edge of the colony. | nesting in a colony exposed ... to a predatory bird, the brown skua (Stercorarius antarcticus), on King George Island, Antarctica. During incubation, skuas prey upon penguin eggs exposed on the edge of the colony ... As one penguin parent must therefore guard the egg or small chick continuously while its partner is away on foraging trips lasting several days (note: the source's line-numbered manuscript prints a stray '50' between 'exposed' and 'to a predatory bird'; the first '...' skips past it) |
| A 2023 study that recorded the brain waves of wild, nesting chinstraps found their solution | The penguins nodded off >10,000 times per day, engaging in bouts of bihemispheric and unihemispheric slow-wave sleep lasting on average only 4 seconds ... Science, 2023, 382 (6674) (note: the year comes from the paper's own self-citation line in the HAL deposit, which appears after the abstract in the cached text; 'recorded the brain waves' glosses the paper's EEG method described throughout) |
| A 2023 study that recorded the brain waves of wild, nesting chinstrap penguins found they nod off more than 10,000 times a day, in naps that average four seconds. | The penguins nodded off >10,000 times per day, engaging in bouts of bihemispheric and unihemispheric slow-wave sleep lasting on average only 4 seconds ... Science, 2023, 382 (6674) (note: faq 1 first sentence; same reasoning as the body's equivalent claim above) |
| the birds nod off more than 10,000 times a day, in naps that average four seconds | The penguins nodded off >10,000 times per day, engaging in bouts of bihemispheric and unihemispheric slow-wave sleep lasting on average only 4 seconds |
| Some of those naps shut down both sides of the brain together. Others are one-sided | engaging in bouts of bihemispheric and unihemispheric slow-wave sleep lasting on average only 4 seconds (note: 'both sides together' glosses bihemispheric slow-wave sleep and 'one-sided' unihemispheric) |
| video recordings showed each hemisphere's naps lining up with its opposite eye closing | video recordings revealed an association between SWS in a given hemisphere and closure of the contralateral eye (note: 'its opposite eye' glosses 'the contralateral eye'; the same sentence appears in faq 1) |
| A penguin can doze with half its brain while the other half keeps an eye open. | The video shows the relationship between eye opening (dark eye) and eye closure (white feathered eyelid) and EEG activity in the contralateral cerebral hemisphere. When the left eye closes, the EEG in the right hemisphere changes to the high-voltage, low-frequency pattern (red) indicative ... of slow-wave sleep. (note: the open eye is the one on the waking hemisphere's side: the caption pairs eye opening and closure with the contralateral hemisphere's EEG; the source's line-numbered deposit prints a stray '740' inside the last sentence, which the '...' skips) |
| Sleeping With Its Eyes (Half) Closed | video recordings revealed an association between SWS in a given hemisphere and closure of the contralateral eye (note: heading; 'Half' glosses the one-sided (unihemispheric) sleep the paper documents in this species) |
| A penguin can rest half its brain while the other half keeps its eye open. | The video shows the relationship between eye opening (dark eye) and eye closure (white feathered eyelid) and EEG activity in the contralateral cerebral hemisphere. When the left eye closes, the EEG in the right hemisphere changes to the high-voltage, low-frequency pattern (red) indicative ... of slow-wave sleep. (note: faq 1; the open eye is the one on the waking hemisphere's side, per the caption of the paper's eye-and-EEG video) |
| Strung together, those seconds-long naps still let each brain hemisphere bank more than 11 hours of sleep a day while keeping the egg guarded the whole time. | resulting in the accumulation of >11 hours of sleep for each hemisphere (note: faq 1 last sentence; 'keeping the egg guarded the whole time' glosses the paper's account of one parent guarding continuously while the other forages, already quoted for the body's skua-predation claim above) |
| those seconds-long naps let each hemisphere bank more than 11 hours of slow-wave sleep across a day, and the bird almost 15 hours of it in total | the penguins accumulated 14.92 ± 1.13 h ... of SWS per day ... each hemisphere obtained > 11.5 h ... of SWS per day. (note: 14.92 h of SWS rounds to 'almost 15 hours'; the paper could not score REM sleep, so every total on the page is slow-wave sleep; 11.5 h rounds down to 'more than 11 hours' to match the abstract's figure used elsewhere) |
| Nesting chinstraps rack up over 10,000 microsleeps a day, each averaging about four seconds, and still bank more than 11 hours of sleep for each half of the brain while they guard the egg from skuas. | The penguins nodded off >10,000 times per day, engaging in bouts of bihemispheric and unihemispheric slow-wave sleep lasting on average only 4 seconds, but resulting in the accumulation of >11 hours of sleep for each hemisphere. (note: blockquote; 'guard the egg from skuas' glosses the skua predation and continuous guarding described in the same paper's introduction) |
| Some of those microsleeps shut down both sides of the brain at once, and others are one-sided | engaging in bouts of bihemispheric and unihemispheric slow-wave sleep lasting on average only 4 seconds (note: faq 1; 'both sides at once' glosses bihemispheric slow-wave sleep and 'one-sided' unihemispheric) |
| nodding off more than 10,000 times a day in naps averaging four seconds, some with both sides of its brain asleep and some with only one | The penguins nodded off >10,000 times per day, engaging in bouts of bihemispheric and unihemispheric slow-wave sleep lasting on average only 4 seconds (note: vibe.reason, re-paired in task #939 (Shakti); 'both sides' and 'only one' gloss bihemispheric and unihemispheric, as in faq 1) |

## Strycker et al. (2020). A global population assessment of the Chinstrap penguin (Pygoscelis antarctica). Scientific Reports.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-76479-3

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| Snow and ice-free ground on the Antarctic Peninsula and islands in the South Atlantic, including the South Shetlands, South Orkneys and South Sandwich Islands | the location of snow and ice-free terrain where such a colony may be located as a breeding "site." (note: stats.habitat) |
| A 2020 assessment put the global population at 3.42 million breeding pairs across 375 colonies | Using satellite imagery, drone imagery, and ground counts, we have assembled the first comprehensive global population assessment of Chinstrap penguins (Pygoscelis antarctica) at 3.42 ... million breeding pairs across 375 extant colonies ... Collection date 2020. (note: square-bracketed confidence interval omitted (verify-quotes reads square brackets as an elision marker); 'Collection date 2020' is the paper's own metadata, which appears shortly after the abstract in the cached text) |
| more than a third of that population is concentrated in a handful of large colonies in the South Sandwich Islands | more than one-third of the global Chinstrap penguin population is concentrated in a few large colonies in the South Sandwich Islands |
| Chinstrap and Adélie penguin populations on the western Antarctic Peninsula have declined for the past half century | both Chinstrap and Adélie (Pygoscelis adeliae) penguin populations around the Western Antarctic Peninsula have declined for the past half century |
| A 2020 survey using satellite and drone imagery put the global population at about 3.42 million breeding pairs spread across 375 colonies | Using satellite imagery, drone imagery, and ground counts, we have assembled the first comprehensive global population assessment of Chinstrap penguins (Pygoscelis antarctica) at 3.42 ... million breeding pairs across 375 extant colonies ... Collection date 2020. (note: square-bracketed confidence interval omitted (see note above); 'Collection date 2020' is the paper's own submission metadata, which appears shortly after the abstract in the cached text) |
| with more than a third of them concentrated in a few large colonies in the South Sandwich Islands | more than one-third of the global Chinstrap penguin population is concentrated in a few large colonies in the South Sandwich Islands |

## Masello et al. (2021). How animals distribute themselves in space: energy landscapes of Antarctic avian predators. Movement Ecology.

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40462-021-00255-9

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| though birds tracked at a Deception Island colony have logged maximum dives near 110 meters | Maximum dive depth ... 109.9 ... 111.9 ... chinstrap penguins Pygoscelis antarcticus breeding at Vapour Col rookery, Deception Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, during chick guard (January 2017) (note: Table 2's chinstrap columns: maximum dive depth 109.9 m on short trips and 111.9 m on long trips, so 'near 110 metres' covers both and the page claims no difference between trip types; the table's unit label '[m]' is omitted because the verify-quotes parser reads square brackets as an elision marker) |