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Story: Penguins

Chinstrap penguin

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Chinstrap penguin

More common in the South Atlantic and around the Antarctic Peninsula, chinstrap penguins breed at just one location within the New Zealand Antarctic sector, on the Balleny Islands. Rarely visited even now, this was the site of the first landing south of the Antarctic Circle, when English whaling captains John Balleny and Thomas Freeman stepped ashore on 9 February 1839.

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How to cite this page

Lloyd Spencer Davis, Penguins – Penguins of New Zealand Antarctica, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/6419/chinstrap-penguin (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Lloyd Spencer Davis, published 2 March 2009.