A wildlife photographer has shared a once-in-a-lifetime photo of what he believes is a “never before seen” yellow penguin.
Belgian landscape and wildlife photographer Yves Adams was leading a two-month photo exhibition in the South Atlantic in December 2019 when the group made a stop on an island in South Georgia to photograph a colony of over 120,000 king penguins.
While unloading some safety equipment and food onto Salisbury Plain, Adams noticed an unusual sight he had never seen before: a penguin with bright yellow plumage.
The penguin’s strange coloring is due to a condition called leucism, which results in a loss of pigmentation. Its cells don’t create melanin anymore so its black feathers become this yellow and creamy color.
Scientists have found that the yellow pigment in penguin feathers is chemically distinct from all other molecules that are known to give color to feathers.
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