Gentoo penguins
| Gentoo penguin | |
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| Brown Bluff, Tabarin Peninsula | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Sphenisciformes |
| Family: | Spheniscidae |
| Genus: | Pygoscelis |
| Species: | P. papua |
| Binomial name | |
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Pygoscelis papua (Forster, 1781) |
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| Distribution of the gentoo penguin | |
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The long-tailed gentoo penguin (/ˈdʒɛntuː/ JEN-too) (Pygoscelis papua) is a penguin species in the genus Pygoscelis, most closely related to the Adélie penguin (P. adeliae) and the chinstrap penguin (P. antarcticus). The first scientific description was made in 1781 by Johann Reinhold Forster with a reference point of the Falkland Islands. They call in a variety of ways, but the most frequently heard is a loud trumpeting which is emitted with its head thrown back.
The application of gentoo to the penguin is unclear. The Oxford English Dictionary notes that gentoo used to be an Anglo-Indian term used as early as 1638 to distinguish Hindus in India from Muslims. The English term may have originated from the Portuguese gentil (compare "gentile").
The gentoo penguin is one of three species in the genus Pygoscelis. and nuclear DNA evidence suggests the genus split from other penguins around 38 million years ago, about 2 million years after the ancestors of the genus Aptenodytes. In turn, the Adelie penguins split off from the other members of the genus around 19 million years ago, and the chinstrap and gentoo finally diverged around 14 million years ago.
Two subspecies of this penguin are recognised: Pygoscelis papua papua and the smaller Pygoscelis papua ellsworthi.
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Wikipedia