Magellanic penguins are one of the largest species of temperate penguins.

The average weight is 4.0-4.7 kg.

Both adults and juveniles have black bills, black backs and white fronts.

Adults have a predominantly black head with a broad white band running from behind the eyes over the ears to near the lower jaw.

Adults also have two black bands on the underside of their necks.

They mainly inhabit the temperate regions of South America, but during the non-breeding season, Magellanic penguins follow the ocean currents northward into deeper tropical latitudes.

During the breeding season, Magellanic penguins inhabit coastline grassland habitats.

The diet consists of fish, shrimp and crustaceans.

The Antarctic is not the only place where penguins are found.

The Magellanic penguin is named after the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan.

They discovered the species on their first voyage to South America in 1519.

Magellanic penguins living in South America have a difficult life, often facing harsh challenges such as food shortages and shrinking habitats.

To add to the misery, after marriage and childbirth, the penguin couples basically have to go through the pain of losing their children.

Although Magellanic penguins are good swimmers and divers.

In spring, summer and autumn, when the sea is warm and there are many fish and shrimps, they usually dive to a depth of no more than 50 meters to find enough food to eat.

In the cold winter months, when food is scarce, they will increase their dive depths, sometimes reaching over 100 meters.

On the one hand, they will also expand the scope of the search for food, and will even swim to the Brazilian waters over to look for food.

However, you can see on the news that a number of Magellanic penguins (about 500 or so) have died en masse on the beaches of São Paulo, Brazil.

The sad thing is that all those dead penguins traveled to Brazil in search of food.

But then they failed to find food and were eventually starved to death.

The corpses floated on the sea and were washed by the waves to the beach of São Paulo.

If a couple raises a baby penguin that dies, they will refuse to mate in the year of the baby's death and will not lay any more eggs to hatch.

Baby penguins are weak and their feathers are not fully grown, making it difficult for them to withstand moisture and cold.

Whenever floods or heavy rains hit, their body temperature will drop rapidly without thorough defense measures, which can easily lead to death.

If they live in dense grass for a long time, the delicate skin of the baby penguins will easily attract many parasites, and they will not have enough nutrients in their bodies.

Even after surviving the natural disaster and avoiding the pesky parasites, the baby penguins will face one last hurdle - their weight.

As the chicks slowly grow, it takes about 9-17 weeks for them to reach full plumage.

They will be very close to the adult penguin in appearance, except for the slightly greyish-black plumage color and the lack of ringed feathers found in adults.

At this point, it is time to see if they have enough weight.

Because of these various problems, there are very few Magellanic penguin couples who refuse to mate for their babies each year.

Currently, the survival rate of young in the Falkland Islands, the main habitat of Magellanic penguins, is only about 20%.