Adelies use pebbles to line their nest sites, and will often pinch stones from their neighbours.

Statistics
Height: 70cm (27.5in) Weight: 4kg (8.5lb)

Physical description
Adelies have white bellies and a white ring around the eyes. The back and the wings are black. They have short, partly feather-covered beaks.

Distribution
Adelies inhabit the Antarctic and surrounding islands. Apart from the storm petrel, Adelies are the most southerly distributed of all birds.

Diet
Adelies feed mainly on crustaceans (mostly krill), but they will also eat fish. Most feeding is done above 20m (66ft) but they can dive to 175m (578ft). Their main predators are leopard seals.

Behaviour
Adelies leave the colony in late March to spend the winter offshore.

Reproduction
Adelies live in colonies of thousands, and come ashore to breed in October. The nest is a small scrape lined with pebbles, but there is fierce competition for breeding sites, and Adelies often steal pebbles from their neighbours' nests.

Males and females take it in turns to incubate the two eggs, and to guard them from marauding skuas. The eggs are laid with a interval of two days, so that when they hatch, one chick is larger and stronger than the other. If food is short, the smaller chick will rarely survive.

The parents look after their own chicks for just over two weeks and then they form creches. These scrums of brown chicks keep safe together and recognise their parents from their calls. The chicks take to the water after about nine weeks.

Conservation status
Adelie penguins are not considered to be endangered. The world population is probably over two million pairs.