Most penguins look like they’re wearing a little waistcoat.

But this ‘all-black’ bird snapped in Antarctica looks like it’s wearing a snazzy cookies and cream vest. 

The Gentoo penguin (Pygoscelis papua) has a condition called melanism, where too much of the dark pigment melanin has been produced, making it blacker than usual. 

In humans, melanin is the natural pigment in the body that gives our hair and eyes a dark colour – and it protects us from the sun’s rays.  

Although melanism makes animals look different to other members of the same species, it can be passed down to offspring as an evolutionary benefit. 

Back in 2010, a King penguin with melanism described as a ‘one in a zillion mutation’ was found in Fortuna Bay on South Georgia, but this is only the second recorded Gentoo penguin with the condition. 

The new discovery has been detailed in a new study led by Rocio Nigro at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina.  

‘The unusual coloration of the penguin was identified as melanism, a genetic condition that causes an excess of melanin pigment in feathers,’ Nigro and colleagues say in their paper, published in Polar Biology. 

‘This particular individual appeared to be in good health and exhibited normal behaviour.’ 

The penguin was seen in Hope Bay, north of the Antarctic Peninsula (the bit that sticks out from the Antarctic mainland like a little tail). 

Despite its ‘unusual plumage coloration’, it seemed to have been accepted by its colony mates. 

The researchers said they could not able confirm its sex or its breeding status, however. 

Normally, Gentoo penguin wings (or ‘flappers’) are black on the top and white on the underside – but this particular bird has all-black wings. 

Like other penguin species, the Gentoo also normally has black on its back and a huge white chest – but this one is heavily speckled with splodges of black to give a ‘cookies and cream’ appearance. 

However, just like other normal Gentoo penguins, it also has white patches extending from its eyes and a bright red-orange beak. 

Penguins are adept swimmers underwater at speeds of up to 15 to 25 miles per hour in the search for food – and their classic black and white ‘waistcoat’ appearance helps them avoid predators. 

When seen by a potential predator that’s looking up from below, a white belly better blends in with light-filled surface water.

Meanwhile, a predator seen looking down from above sees the penguin’s black back which looks similar to the ocean’s darker depths. 

However, Professor Heather Lynch, an ecologist at Stony Brook University in New York, doesn’t think this cookies and cream bird is at more risk of predation because of its genetic condition.  

‘Though penguin colouration is a long-term evolutionary strategy that helps penguins avoid predation, I do not think this penguin’s colouration places it at serious risk,’ Professor Lynch, who wasn’t involved in the study, told New Scientist. 

‘Being a penguin is risky enough already.’

Because black penguins are particularly rare there has been very little research into them.

It is estimated that about one in every 250,000 penguins has the condition, although few are as completely black as the one found in South Georgia in 2010.

In some species, melanism can be beneficial and passed down to subsequent generations as it can help with survival.

For example, dark skin can provide better camouflage that can make them less visible to their prey. 

Mammals and other animals can also experience melanism, including a gorgeous grey seal pup that recently washed up on the Cornwall coast. 

Named Liquorice by staff at the Cornish Seal Sanctuary, the stunning female pup had been spotted by local walkers on a nearby beach.

In 2020, photos emerged of a melanistic tiger in Odisha, India with prominent black all over its back but still with orange stripes over its stomach, neck and legs.

Former head of US Coast Guard Commandant Karl L. Schultz ‘covered up investigation Fouled Anchor that revealed decades of sexual assaults at academy’

• CNN reports Commandant Karl K. Schultz covered up Operation Fouled Anchor 
• He stepped down in 2022 and was replaced by Linda Fagan 

By Jen Smith, Chief Reporter For Dailymail.Com

Published: 16:06 EDT, 8 August 2023 | Updated: 16:13 EDT, 8 August 2023

By Shania Obrien For Daily Mail Australia

Published: 06:53 EDT, 9 August 2023 | Updated: 17:29 EDT, 9 August 2023

Manufacturers of ‘forever chemicals’ tried to cover up the dangers they posed for more than 30 years, a new report claims.

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, who reviewed dozens of company documents, found executives were first alerted to the health risks in 1961, but scientists said that they failed to raise the alarm until the 1990s.

Internal documents revealed chemical manufacturers DuPont and 3M were facing studies warning the chemicals, dubbed per- and polyFluorinated Substances (PFAS), could cause liver enlargement, poisonings and birth defects in children.

But the executives were alleged to have sat on the evidence and allow the chemicals to continue to be used in pots and pans, carpets, children’s toys and even period underwear. They are used in paints and fabrics to make items non-stick or waterproof.

Studies suggest that more than 97 percent of Americans now have PFAS chemicals circulating in their blood.

But US states are still only just waking up to the threat, with Minnesota set to become the first to ban them completely by 2025. 

Dr Tracey Woodruff, a gynecologist, and others involved in the study likened the delay to the tobacco industry’s response to warnings that smoking can cause cancer.

The companies created the chemicals which were then used by other companies in items such as pans and fabrics to make them non stick and give them a waterproof quality. 

But a single scratch can release millions of these toxic forever chemicals that can then be absorbed through the skin into the blood.

They can then enter cells where they damage DNA, raising the risk of cancer, and interfere with vital organs such as the thyroid, affecting metabolism.

In the study, published last night in the Annals of Global Health, researchers combed through documents on PFAS.

These had been obtained from Minnesota-based PFAS inventor 3M and major PFAS manufacturer DuPont, based in Wilmington, Delaware, in a lawsuit by Robert Billot that began in 1998.

He eventually managed to get records from the company spanning 1961 to 2006 which were then donated to the UCSF Chemical Industry Documents Library.

The scientists used these documents to construct a timeline of when manufacturers became aware of the risks posed by PFAS chemicals.

They then conducted further resarch to also construct a timeline of when alerts were raised in the public.

Results showed that warnings about PFAS chemicals and, in particular, the Teflon chemical coating, were first raised in 1961.

The chief of toxicology at DuPont found in experiments that rats exposed to PFAS in low doses had an ‘increase in the size of the liver’. They warned that the chemicals should be handled with ‘extreme care’ and contact with the skin should be ‘strictly avoided’.

Concerns were again raised internally in the 1970s, when DuPont-funded Haskell Laboratorie found that PFAS was ‘highly toxic when inhaled and moderately toxic when ingested’.

Tests in dogs in the same decade showed that animals that ingested a single dose of PFAS died up to two days later.

In 1980, DuPont also learned that two of eight employees who had been pregnant while working in their factories gave birth to babies with deformities.

But the company did not reveal the findings, instead saying the following year that:  ‘We know of no evidence of birth defects caused by [PFAS] at DuPont.’

They also went on to assure employees that PFAS was no more toxic than ‘table salt’.

Again in 1991, they said in a press release that PFAS has ‘no known toxic or ill health effects in humans at concentration levels detected’.

This was published in response to a research report that year which found that PFAS posed a ‘likely risk to human health’.

In 1998 and 2002 the manufacturer faced lawsuits over the potential health risks posed by PFAS, which led them to release studies about what the industry knew that were not in the public domain.

Dr Woodruff said: ‘These documents reveal clear evidence that the chemical industry knew about the dangers of PFAS and failed to let the public, regulators, and even their own employees know the risks.

She added: ‘As many countries pursue legal and legislative action to curb PFAS production, we hope they are aided by the timeline of evidence presented in this paper.

‘This timeline reveals serious failures in the way the U.S. currently regulates harmful chemicals.’

The scientists drew parallels between the actions of PFAS manufaturers and those of tobacco companies in the 1950s and 1960s.

It was in the 1950s that the major British Doctors Study was published which warned of a link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.

The following decade the US surgeon general published a report concluding that smoking did cause lung cancer.

But in response to these findings, the tobacco industry sought to question the findings and play-down the risks.

Some documents suggest that tobacco companies were aware of the risks posed by smoking, but instead of warning others discussed strategies to minimize or play them down. 

DuPont has previously denied to NBC News that it hid the risks posed by PFAS and said that it has provided extensive information to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over the years on the risk.

In 2021, the company agreed to share $4billion settlement costs for the use of ‘forever chemicals’ with other company spin offs.

In 2019, DuPont’s chief operating and engineering officer Daryl Roberts called for regulation of two specific types of PFAS. 

For its part, 3M has previously said last year that it would discontinue the use of forever chemicals.

‘We have already reduced our use of PFAS over the past three years through ongoing research and development, and will continue to innovate new solutions for customers,’ a spokesperson said.

Its senior vice president of corporate affairs Denise Rutherford said in 2019 that the chemicals pose no threat to human health at the current levels.