Today, we have an all-day tour to Punta Tombo, home to Magellanic Penguins from September to April. They come here to breed, nest, and molt their feathers. After leaving the city of 100,000 people, we're in a desert. Before the Andes rose, this was a lush area filled with tropical plants and dinosaurs. Today, they receive only about 200 mm/yr of rain. Most of the towns in this province of Chubut are on the Chubut river, the only river around in the region that reaches the sea. The water from wells is too salty to drink, so everyone is dependent on the river. We stop near the Welsh town of Trelew to see a life-size model of the skeleton for a Titanosaur that was unearthed here. The largest dinosaur yet discovered. The skeleton is now in New York, but other tours visit the local paleontology museum which is quite renowned.
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Titanosaur |
We drove for 2 hours to Punta Tumbo. Here the penguins build their nests under bushes or in holes to be sheltered from the sun. The penguins generally go back to the same nest they had last year, which allows a male to find the same female year after year, unless another penguin has stolen the nest. There are over 210,000 nests here, or about 800,000 penguins. Besides the nesting pairs, juveniles come here before they reach sexual maturity, primarily to moat toward the end of the season. After the eggs, are laid, the male and female alternate at keeping the eggs warm, they have a patch between their legs without feathers to pass their body heat to the eggs. An interesting factoid, the adults can't recognize their chicks, they recognize the nest, and come back to feed the chicks that are in the nest. Usually at least one adult stays with the nest, while the other gathers food. But some of the nests are a 2-3 hour walk to the sea.
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