There are somewhere between 16 and 22 penguin species living in the Southern Hemisphere (I promise, I can explain), but scientists have only just discovered the newest species: Pygoscelis kerguelensis. This ‘cryptic species’ has been hiding in plain sight this entire time, and it wasn’t until recently that genetic studies confirmed what some researchers have hypothesized all along.

There isn’t just one species of gentoo penguin; there are four!

Researchers from the University of Chile in Santiago and the University of California, Berkeley, were the first to conclude that Pygoscelis kerguelensis, or the southeastern gentoo penguin, is its own species rather than simply a unique population of gentoos. After this was confirmed by genetic studies, the species became the first new penguin species discovered in the last 100 years.

How One Penguin Species Became Four

Genetic testing of individuals from multiple populations showed that there are four distinct species of gentoo penguins (southern, northern, eastern, and southeastern), one of which had never been discovered before. The southern population is the only gentoo species that lives on the mainland of Antarctica, while the other three, including the newest species, inhabit other islands within the Arctic Circle.

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The southeastern colony calls Kerguelen Island home, though many suspect they are also present on nearby Heard Island. On this map from Polar Literacy, they’re located east of Antarctica (to the right).

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These four species likely split relatively recently, within the last 300,000 to 500,000 years. This is likely due to geographic isolation and extremely different habitats, as the Polar Front, which separates warmer, saltier seas from colder, less salty waters, also separates the four populations.

In the past, biologists have debated the number of gentoo penguin species, estimating anywhere from 1 to 6, but this genetic analysis, led by University of Chile grad student Daly Noll, examined more of the penguin genome than ever before.

Those discoveries proved that these populations are genetically different enough to be considered separate species even though they look the same. These are called ‘cryptic species,’ and they are more common on Earth than one might think. There has been much debate about which penguin populations could be classified as species or subspecies, which is why there is no universally agreed-upon number of penguin species in the world.

The Future of Gentoo Penguins

The researchers from Berkley and Santiago also tested climate models to see whether any of the gentoo species will still have a habitat in 2050. Sadly, all hypothetical models showed severe, if not complete, loss of habitat for three out of four groups.

The most southern population, however, may have more hospitable land than ever as Antarctica continues to warm. Still, climate change means bad news for most penguins, which means this species that scientists have just discovered may not actually be around for long.

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