Nature is full of surprises, as we have observed over and again. Nature never fails to astound us with its beauty and originality, whether it’s a wild owl sitting on your head, stumbling onto a pink manta ray, capturing the ‘perfect timing’ sort of solar eclipse, or discovering a tiny giraffe.
This time, it’s in the vein of creatures that aren’t the color that they’re meant to be. A wildlife guide was fortunate enough to come across a one-of-a-kind yellow-colored penguin in the wild and photograph it.
Penguins are well-known for their tuxedo-like skin, but did you know that there are also yellow penguins?
Meet Yves Adams, a Belgian photo tour leader, expedition guide, and wildlife photographer who embarked on a two-month photo adventure in the South Atlantic in 2019. The crew had to make a halt on an island in South Georgia to photograph a colony of around 120,000 king penguins!
Adams discovered something unusual when unloading equipment and food on the Salisbury Plain: among a sea of tuxedos, he noticed a penguin that was anything like black and white, but rather a brilliant yellow (and white).
“I’d never seen or heard of a yellow penguin before,” Adams said, according to Kennedy News. “There were 120,000 birds on that beach, and this was the only one that was yellow.” Though it is essential to note that this isn’t the first time a yellow penguin has been discovered in history, with research on leucism in penguins dating back to 2000, it appears that these images are the first of their type on the internet, much alone with such clarity.
Photo tour guide from Belgium Yves Adams discovered one such species in South Georgia.
The yellow tint of the bird is produced by leucism, a disease in which the animal loses some of its pigmentations.
Not only were they fortunate to have come upon the flightless bird in the first place, but it was also close enough to the party of photo adventurers—about 50 meters (150 feet) away—to be photographed in all of its yellow-coated splendor. There were no other penguins, seals, or other natural obstructions on the route.
This yellow specimen is uncommon because of a disorder known as leucism, in which the animal loses some of its pigmentations, causing color changes—they become white, pale, or patchy on their skin, hair, feathers, or scales, but, unlike albinism, it does not damage the eyes.
Because this penguin isn’t producing melanin, its usually black feathers have become yellow. According to research on leucism in penguins, the chance of getting leucism varies from 1 in 20,000 to 146,000. So, in a colony of 120,000, this one meets the bill.
Leucism is estimated to affect 1 in 20,000 to 146,000 penguins.
The photos have gone viral since they were posted, with over 100k upvotes on Reddit alone.
The impact of this illness on survival is still unclear. However, like with many unusual occurrences among animals, it is reasonable to guess that it may have an influence on things like finding a partner or being easier or harder to identify by predators, of which they have a plethora.
Adams’ images captivated the internet, with various online news agencies reporting the story and hundreds of individuals like the photos across multiple social media platforms. It was also shared on Reddit and Imgur, where it received over 100,000 upvotes and 60,000 views, respectively.
“It was a miracle that he landed near us. “We wouldn’t have been able to catch this spectacle of a lifetime if it had been 50 yards further,” Adams explained.
If you enjoy what you see, you can find more of Adams’ photography on his website as well as on social networking platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. But, before you go, tell us what you think of this unusual yellow penguin in the comments area below!
Source Credit Bored Panda
