Are South African Cape Penguins Braying According to Linguistic Laws?

Summary: South African Cape penguins affirm linguistic laws that human speech and human-like vocalizations aver, according to Biology Letters Feb. 5, 2020.

Boulders Beach, Simon's Town, South Africa, is one of two mainland colonies, along with Stony Point in Betty's Bay, where South African Cape penguins (Spheniscus demersus) swim and walk with people; Saturday, Feb. 16, 2019, 18:00: kallerna, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

South African Cape penguins are the first non-primate species to affirm short-sound, long-sequence linguistic laws, according to an article about 590 recordings of braying zoo mates for Biology Letters Feb. 5, 2020.

Nine co-authors of the article Do Penguins' Vocal Sequences Conform to Linguistic Laws? broach mating, territorial brays as bearing frequent short sounds and short-syllable long sequences. Year-round breedability culminates in concentrated moulting November through December and mating, nesting, parenting, self-emancipating colonies of peeping chicks and braying, hawing, yelling adults November through May. Long-term, perhaps lifelong, monogamous South African Cape penguins do alternating 2.5-day brooding and foraging shifts for their seasonal two-paired eggs in guano-designed nests or underbrush burrows.

Forty-five-day-olds, 60 to 130-day-olds, 12 to 22-month-olds and two to four-plus-year-olds respectively embrace parent-established nests; 55-plus-member nurseries; sea life and birthplace moults; and yearly birthplace reunions.

Non-banded, non-marked, non-spotted hatchling and juvenile South African Cape penguins favor blue-brown-gray rock-colored camouflage with respectively brown-gray fluff; and blue-gray heads and upper-sides and brown-white undersides.

South African Cape penguins, grouped scientifically as Spheniscus demersus (from Greek σφηνίσκος, "small wedge" and Latin dēmersus, "submerged"), gain adult plumage during 20-day moultings as 12-plus-month-olds. Dense waterproof feathers and pink-patched skin above their eyes respectively help them during non-breeding, non-parenting seasons at sea and hold cooling blood during overly warm weather. South African Cape penguins, identified by Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778), involve flipper wings and short tails in navigation and webbed feet in propulsion.

Physically and sexually mature South African Cape penguins juggle black-water, white-water camouflage in black-billed, black-crowned, black upper-sides, black-chinned, black-patched faces and black horseshoe-banded chests and throats.

Black-finned, black-footed mature South African Cape penguins know dark-water, white-water camouflage in black-spotted white undersides with single, horseshoe-like chest-flank-leg bands and horseshoe-like, single-banded, white face surrounds.

Physically and sexually mature South African Cape penguins log female low-ranging and male high-ranging 23.62 to 27.56-inch (60 to 70-centimeter) lengths, beak tip through tail tip. They manifest female low-ranging and male high-ranging 4.63 to 11.02-pound (2.1 to 5-kilogram) weights and 20.08 to 23.42-inch (51 to 59.5-centimeter) heights when standing or walking. They net 12.43-mile (20-kilometer) hourly speeds; 69 to 275-second, 98.43 to 426.51-foot (30 to 130-meter-) deep dives; and 248.55 to 1,180.61-mile (400 to 1,900-kilometer) marine ranges.

Physically and sexually mature two to six-year-old South African Cape penguins obtain 19.05 ounces (540 grams) and, when co-parenting, 2.21-plus pounds (1-plus kilogram), of daily prey.

South African Cape penguins pursue shoaling pelagic anchovy, catfish, crustacean, horse mackerel, lungfish, pilchard sardine, round herring and squid prey in the cold, nutrient-rich Benguela Current.

South African Cape penguins queue for offshore breeding from Hollam's Bird Island off central Namibia through Bird Island in Algoa Bay near Port Elizabeth, South Africa. They require eight insular and one mainland coastal southern Namibian, 10 insular and two mainland Western Cape Province and six insular Eastern Cape Province breeding colonies. The International Union for Conservation of Nature supports an endangered status for South African Cape penguins, whose total twenty-first-century populations seem settled around 25,000 breeding pairs.

Predatory thefts of nesting guano for incubating eggs and pre-fledged chicks threaten wild verification of the linguistic laws tendered by braying, captive South African Cape penguins.

distribution map for South African Cape penguins (Spheniscus demersus), whose coastal swim groups, at 2.49 to 4.35-mile (4 to 7-kilometer) hourly cruise speeds within 7.46 miles (12 kilometers) of Namibian and South African, and sometimes Mozambican, shorelines, and insular and mainland breeding, nesting, parenting, self-emancipating and moulting colonies make them vulnerable to predatory African sacred ibises, Cape Fur seals, cormorants, gannets, herons, kelp gulls, killer whales, seals and sharks; large-spotted genets, leopards, people, rats and yellow mongooses; and snakes; Monday, May 10, 2010: Nrg800, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Boulders Beach, Simon's Town, South Africa, is one of two mainland colonies, along with Stony Point in Betty's Bay, where South African Cape penguins (Spheniscus demersus) swim and walk with people; Saturday, Feb. 16, 2019, 18:00: kallerna, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boulders_Beach_2019_2.jpg

distribution map for South African Cape penguins Spheniscus demersus, whose coastal swim groups, at 2.49 to 4.35-mile (4 to 7-kilometer) hourly cruise speeds within 7.46 miles (12 kilometers) of Namibian and South African, and sometimes Mozambican, shorelines, and insular and mainland breeding, nesting, parenting, self-emancipating and moulting colonies make them vulnerable to predatory African sacred ibises, Cape Fur seals, cormorants, gannets, herons, kelp gulls, killer whales, seals and sharks; large-spotted genets, leopards, people, rats and yellow mongooses; and snakes; Monday, May 10, 2010: Nrg800, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jackass_Penguin.png

For further information:

"African Penguin." SA-Venues > South Africa > Information > Wildlife > Birdlife.
Available @ https://www.sa-venues.com/wildlife/african-penguin.htm

"African Penguin Spheniscus demersus." San Diego Zoo Animals & Plants > Animals > Birds > Search by Common Name.
Available @ https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/african-penguin

"African Penguin (Spheniscus demersus)." U.S. Fish & Wildlife Servic > ECOS Environmental Conservation Online System > Species Profile.
Available @ https://ecos.fws.gov/ecp0/profile/speciesProfile?sId=6711

Berger, Cynthia Ann. "Sphenisciformes Penguins (Spheniscidae)." In: Michael Hutchins, Jerome A. Jackson, Walter J. Bock and Donna Olendorf, editors. Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia. Second edition. Volume 8, Birds I: 147-158. Farmington Hills MI: Gale Group, 2002.

BirdLife International 2018. "Spheniscus demersus." The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2018: e.T22697810A132604504. https://.dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2018-2.RLTS.T22697810A132604504.en.
Available @ https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22697810/132604504

Connan, Maëlle; G. J. Greg Hofmeyr; and Pierre A. Pistorius. 19 July 2016. "Reappraisal of the Trophic Ecology of One of the World's Most Threatened Spheniscids, the African Penguin." PLoS ONE 11(7): e0159402. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0159402
Available @ https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0159402

Davis, Nicola. 4 February 2020. "Jackass Penguin Call Shares Traits of Human Speech, Scientists Say." The Guardian > News > Environment > Wildlife > Biology.
Available @ https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/feb/05/jackass-penguin-call-shares-traits-of-human-speech-scientists-say

Favaro, Livio; Marco Gamba; Eleonora Cresta; Elena Fumagalli; Francesca Bandoli; Cristina Pilenga; Valentina Isaja; Nicolas Mathevon; and David Reby. 5 February 2020. "Do Penguins' Vocal Sequences Conform to Linguistic Laws?" Biology Letters. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2019.0589
Available @ https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2019.0589

Lepage, Denis. "Jackass Penguin." Avibase > Species > Summary.
Available @ https://avibase.bsc-eoc.org/species.jsp?avibaseid=9B183BDD66511DD8

Linnæi, Caroli. (Linnaeus, Carl.) 1758. "65. Diomedea. demersa.2." Page 132. In: Systema Naturæ per regna tria naturæ, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Tomus I. Editio decima, reformata. Holmiæ (Sweden): Laurentii Salvii. DOI: 10.5962/bhl.title.542
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ Lynch, Wayne. 2007. Penguins of the World. Buffalo NY: Firefly Books Ltd.

Parsons, Nola J.; Tertius A. Gous; Adam M. Schaeger; and Ralph E. T. Vanstreels. 20 September 2016. "Health Evaluation of African Penguins (Spheniscus demersus) in Southern Africa." Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research 83(1): a1147. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/ojvr.v83i1.1147
Available via National Center for Biotechnology Information, US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health @ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6238701/

Pearse, Will. 2011. "Spheniscus demersus" (On-line). Edited by Karen Powers and Tanya Dewey. Animal Diversity Web. Ann Arbor MI: University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.
Available @ https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Spheniscus_demersus/

Rafferty, John P. 1 July 2019. "African Penguin Bird." Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Available @ https://www.britannica.com/animal/African-penguin

Randall, R. M.; B. M. Randall; J. Cooper; G. D. La Cock; and G. J. B. Ross. Autumn 1987. "Jackass Penguin Spheniscus Demersus Movements, Inter-Island Visits, and Settlement." Journal of Field Ornithology 58(4): 445-455.
Available @ https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/jfo/v058n04/p0445-p0455.pdf

Randall, Rod M.; and Bridget M. Randall. 1986. "The Diet of Jackass Penguins Spheniscus demersus in Algoa Bay, South Africa, and Its Bearing on Population Declines Elsewhere." Biological Conservation 37(2): 119-134. https://doi.org/10.1016/0006-3207(86)90087-X
Available @ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/000632078690087X

Seiphetlho, Ntefeleng Lesego. 20 May 2018. "African Penguin." South African National Biodiversity Institute > Animal of the Week.
Available @ https://www.sanbi.org/animal-of-the-week/african-penguin/

Shelton, P. A.; R. J. M. Crawford; J. Cooper; & R. K. Brooke. 1984. "Distribution, Population Size and Conservation of the Jackass Penguin Spheniscus demersus." South African Journal of Marine Science 2(1): 217-257. Published online 8 April 2010. DOI: 10.2989/02577618409504370
Available via Taylor & Francis Online @ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2989/02577618409504370

Smith, P. A. "African Penguin Spheniscus demersus." Last updated 24 August 2014. Animal Fact Guide > Animal Facts.
Available @ https://animalfactguide.com/animal-facts/african-penguin/

"Spheniscus demersus (Linnaeus, 1758)." National Biodiversity Network > Biota > Animalia > Chordata > Vertebrata > Aves > Spheniscidae.
Available @ https://species.nbnatlas.org/species/NHMSYS0000533799

Wilson, R. P. 9 September 1985. "The Jackass Penguin (Spheniscus demersus) as a Pelagic Predator." Marine Ecology - Progress Series Vol. 25: 219-227.
Available @ https://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/25/m025p219.pdf

Wolfaardt, Anton. "African Penguin." International Penguin Conservation Work Group > Adopt a Penguin > 17 Species of Penguin > Penguins by Species.
Available @ http://www.penguins.cl/african-penguins.htm