Antarctic creature makes rare appearance on New Zealand beach. See the ‘king’ (2025)

The large mass of land and ice on the southern tip of the planet is ruled by the emperor penguin. Standing more than 4 feet tall, the massive bird is the largest penguin in the world, uniquely adapted to survive in the barren Antarctic.

The surrounding islands, however, belong to their slightly smaller noble cousin — the king penguin.

King penguins live in places like the South Sandwich Islands, South Georgia Island and the Crozet Islands in breeding colonies on the small patches of land in the south Atlantic and Indian Oceans, according to the Australian Antarctic Program.

These islands are incredibly remote, making sightings of the penguins outside the subantarctic rare.

That’s why a tour group in a private nature reserve in New Zealand were so shocked when they saw a king penguin walking along the beach.

“A rare sighting at The (Otago Peninsula Eco Restoration Alliance) today — a king penguin stopped briefly on the beach before heading back out to sea,” the organization said in an April 13 Facebook post. “These birds have been sighted fewer than 10 times in New Zealand.”

The tour group watched as the penguin spent about 20 minutes on the beach before heading back to the water, alliance director Jerad Haldan told Radio New Zealand on April 15.

“It is incredibly rare,” Haldan told the news outlet. “I think most people will be aware we had an Adélie (penguin) stop by last year during the season and so this is two seasons now where we’ve had some of the rarest penguins stopping by.”

The distance from Dunedin, where the reserve is located, to mainland Antarctica is more than 1,500 miles, and the distance to the isolated islands is even farther, so while the species themselves are not rare, their appearance so far outside their natural range is noteworthy.

“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity for our staff as well,” Haldan said.

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King penguins were first discovered by European explorers in the 18th century and were thought to be the same as emperor penguins until 1844, according to the Australian Antarctic Program.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, they were hunted nearly to extinction after the seal population was hit severely and hunters turned to the king penguins as a new source of oil, according to the program.

Today, their population is considered of “least concern” and their numbers are increasing, according to the International Union on the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species.

King penguins specifically eat lantern fish but increase their diet variety to include squid over the winter, according to the Australian Antarctic Program.

Dunedin is in southern New Zealand, on the Pacific coast.