Notes on the Sexual Habits of the ‘Astonishingly Depraved’ Adélie Penguin, 1911

“There seems to be no crime too low for these Penguins”

– Dr. George Murray Levick, notes on the sexual habits of the Adélie penguin, Antarctica, 1911

 

 

Back in 1911, a select group of readers learned of the “astonishing depravity” and “hooligan males” of the Adélie penguins recorded in Cape Adare, Antarctica.

The study was written by Dr. George Murray Levick ( (3 July 1876 – 30 May 1956), a scientist and surgeon with the British Antarctic (Terra Nova) Expedition who in 1910 landed at Cape Adare (71◦18 S, 170◦09 E) and for a year observed the huge local penguin colony. He was the first scientist ever to observe the breeding cycle of the penguins. And what he saw both revolted and enthralled him.

He witnessed “little hooligan bands of half a dozen or more (males)… hang about the outskirts of the knolls, whose inhabitants they annoy by their constant acts of depravity”. He saw chicks being “misused before the very eyes of its parents”. Many of which were crushed to death in the assault. As well as chicks, he witnessed males having sex with each other, and also with dead females. He also saw the males force females to have sex with them, occasionally killing them in the process.

 

Levick was so disturbed by what he saw that he wrote his observations in Greek so that only ‘educated men’ could read it. Once he was back in England, George published Natural History of the Adélie Penguin, with the parts about the rampant penguins removed. George went on to write the paper Sexual Habits of the Adélie Penguin, which was privately circulated in the manner of zoological erotica amongst a select group.

George went on to serve in the Grand Fleet and fight at Gallipoli in WW1. He founded the British Schools Exploring Society in 1932 and remained its president until his death in 1956. An obituary described him as “a truly great English gentleman”, and for it not a bit penguin-like.

 

Whilst the chicks are small the two parents manage to keep them fed without much difficulty; but as one of them has always to remain at the nest to keep the chicks warm, guard them from skuas and hooligan cocks, and prevent them from straying, only one is free to go for food

– Dr Levick

 

 

Twice already I have mentioned that strayed chicks fall a prey to ‘hooligan’ cocks. These hang about the rookery often in little bands. At the beginning of the season there are very few of them, but later they increase greatly, do much damage, and cause a great deal of annoyance to the peaceful inhabitants. The few to be found at first probably are cocks who have not succeeded in finding mates, and consequently are ‘at a loose end.’ Later on, as their numbers are so greatly increased, they must be widowers, whose mates have lost their lives in one way or another.

Many of the colonies, especially those nearer the water, are plagued by little knots of ‘hooligans’ who hang about their outskirts, and should a chick go astray it stands a good chance of losing its life at their hands. The crimes which they commit are such
as to find no place in this book, but it is interesting indeed to note that, when nature intends them to find employment, these birds, like men, degenerate in idleness

– Dr Levick

 

I saw another act of astonishing depravity today. A hen which had been in some way badly injured in the hindquarters was crawling painfully along on her belly. I was just wondering whether I ought to kill her or not, when a cock noticed her in passing, and went up to her. After a short inspection he deliberately raped her, she being quite unable to resist him.

– Dr Levick

 

Incidentally, further studies by D.G. Ainley in the 1960s with th sue of a dead female penguin found that the lone male will pretty much shas anything. When “the dead penguin model became damaged by repeat deployments, it was found that just the frozen head of the penguin, with self-adhesive white ‘O’s’ for eye rings, propped upright on wire with a large rock for a body, was sufficient stimulus for males to copulate and deposit sperm on the rock. ”

Via: penguinscience, Natural History Museum