filholi breeds on the Prince Edward Islands, the Crozet Islands, the Kerguelen Islands, Heard Island, Macquarie Island, Campbell Island, the Auckland Islands and the Antipodes Islands. These include most significantly Isla de los Estados, the Ildefonso Islands, the Diego Ramírez Islands and Isla Noir. chrysocome which breeds on the Falkland Islands and on islands off Patagonia. About two-thirds of the global population belongs to E. The southern rockhopper penguin group has a global population of roughly 1 million pairs. Description Įudyptes chrysocome chrysocome colony on Saunders Island, Falkland Islands Interbreeding with the macaroni penguin has been reported at Heard and Marion Islands, with three hybrids recorded there by a 1987–88 Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition. schlegeli), which may just be a colour morph of the macaroni penguin. The rockhopper penguins are closely related to the macaroni penguin ( E. Therefore, northern birds are sometimes separated as E. The northern rockhopper penguin lives in a different water mass than the western and eastern rockhopper penguin, separated by the Subtropical Front, and they are genetically different. Eudyptes chrysocome filholi, the eastern rockhopper penguin or Indopacific southern rockhopper penguin – breeds on subantarctic islands of the Indian and western Pacific oceans.Eudyptes chrysocome chrysocome, the western rockhopper penguin or American southern rockhopper penguin – breeds around the southern tip of South America.The subspecies recognized for the southern rockhopper penguin complex are: Still others consider all three distinct. Some split the northern subspecies ( moseleyi) from the southern forms ( chrysocome and filholi). Many taxonomists consider all three rockhopper penguin forms subspecies. The rockhopper penguin complex is confusing. chrysocome (Forster, JR, 1781) – Cape Horn to the Falkland Islands filholi Hutton, FW, 1879 – Kerguelen Islands and subantarctic islands of New Zealand

The specific epithet chrysocome is from the Ancient Greek khrusokomos meaning 'golden-haired' (from khrusos meaning 'gold' and komē meaning 'hair'). The genus name combines the Ancient Greek eu meaning 'fine' with dyptes meaning 'diver'.

The species is now placed in the genus Eudyptes that was introduced by the French ornithologist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in 1816. The southern rockhopper penguin was formally described in 1781 by the German naturalist Johann Reinhold Forster under the binomial name Aptenodytes chrysocome. The use of Linnaeus' binomial name was not adopted by later ornithologists, perhaps because he had already used the specific demersa for the African penguin which he placed with the wandering albatross in the genus Diomedea. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Phaethon demersus and cited Edwards' work. When in 1758 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the tenth edition, he placed the southern rockhopper penguin with the red-billed tropicbird in the genus Phaethon. Edwards based his hand-coloured etching on a preserved specimen owned by Peter Collinson. In 1743 the English naturalist George Edwards included an illustration and a description of the southern rockhopper penguin in the first volume of his A Natural History of Uncommon Birds. It occurs in subantarctic waters of the western Pacific and Indian Oceans, as well as around the southern coasts of South America. The southern rockhopper penguin group ( Eudyptes chrysocome), is a species of rockhopper penguin, that is sometimes considered distinct from the northern rockhopper penguin. Aptenodytes chrysocome J.R.Forster, 1781.Green: western subspecies, blue: eastern subspecies

Macaroni penguin rockhopper