Authoritative work offers new insights

PENGUINS: THEIR WORLD, THEIR WAYS<br>,b>Tui De Roy, Mark Jones, Julie Cornthwaite</b><br><i>Bateman</i>
PENGUINS: THEIR WORLD, THEIR WAYS<br>,b>Tui De Roy, Mark Jones, Julie Cornthwaite</b><br><i>Bateman</i>
For many of us, penguins are of more than passing interest: New Zealand and its Antarctic territories are home to half the world's penguin species and Otago residents can drive to see three of them.

No matter how much you know about penguins, this book offers the promise of new insights. It's like a wildlife documentary, a science summary and a penguin encyclopaedia all in one book.

The three authors have, between them, visited and photographed each of the 18 penguin species that live throughout the southern hemisphere. The resulting photographs set a new standard in portraying these animal icons.

The images include Humboldt penguins sheltering from the sun in their rocky nest beneath a spiky cactus in Peru; a Galapagos penguin scattering a silvery shoal of baitfish at the equator; a squadron of gentoo penguins storming ashore from a sparkling sea at the Falkland Islands; a meditative Fiordland penguin standing alone in the moist, green West Coast rainforest; colourful king penguins crowding the elephant seals on South Georgia; and emperors tobogganing in a tiny line across the vast frigid plain of an Antarctic ice shelf. For me, the northern rockhoppers were a favourite, staring with alert red eyes from beneath a sulphur-coloured crest of long, crazy plumes.

The superb photos are accompanied by the photographers' personal stories of experiences with the birds and their remote surroundings.

The pictures and stories are organised according to the families of penguins, rather than by their locations. As you read through, you seem to jump from place to place, but the photos offer an opportunity to take a good look at each species: a chance few people will ever have in person.

A northern rockhopper penguin in an image from <i>Penguins:  Their World, Their Ways.</i> Photo...
A northern rockhopper penguin in an image from <i>Penguins: Their World, Their Ways.</i> Photo by Tui de Roy.
The second part of the book is a series of articles - each written by a penguin specialist - about some aspect of penguin research. It begins with a comprehensive historical account by Mark Jones of the history of human interaction with penguins. The rest of the 17 articles are shorter, but each is fascinating.

They include a review of penguin evolution, in which we learn that New Zealand was home to many species in the past, including the largest known to have lived; an article on colours that reveals the feathers of crested penguins contain a previously unknown pigment; a discussion of the use of antibacterial chemicals by king penguins; and the curious case of the crested penguins that lay two eggs, always neglecting the first. In the final article, the police inspector on remote Tristan da Cunha tells of an oil spill that brought disaster to the northern rockhopper penguins there, and of the strenuous efforts of the islanders to save them.

The third section is devoted to summarised collections of facts about penguins, and a two-page ''fact sheet'' for each species, all compiled by Julie Cornthwaite.

Running through all three sections of the book is the message that climate change and the effects of human activities are adversely affecting most penguins. The numbers of most species are declining, and some are endangered.

Will they go the way of the mysterious Waitaha penguin - known only from its bones - that became extinct in New Zealand after the first humans settled here?

This attractive, glossy, authoritative and absorbing book will interest browsers, researchers, students and anyone interested in wildlife. It is bound to be the new standard popular reference for penguins.

- Marcus Turner is a Dunedin natural history researcher.

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