Late last year former Cosmos editor Gail MacCallum and her husband and editorial offsider, Ian Connellan, travelled to the Antarctic Peninsula to see and photograph wildlife, courtesy of Australian cruise company Scenic.
Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) are one of only four penguin species to nest on the Antarctic continent.
Gentoos penguins (Pygoscelis papua), like all penguins, exhibit a range of behaviours that are disconcertingly human-like.
Chinstrappenguins (Pygoscelis antarcticus) take more than 10,000, four-second mini-sleeps a day, researchers have discovered.
Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) often dive flukes up, and they’re also often seen breaching – leaping out of the water which is thought to be a non-verbal social behaviour.
Humpbacks are abundant in Antarctic waters and commonly seen – most often their backs and dorsal fins are visible.
Crabeater seals (Lobodon carcinophaga) behave counter to their name: they’re specialist predators of krill, not crabs.
Found right around Antarctica, crabeaterseals are the world’s most abundant seal species – there are at least 7 million, and possibly more than 70 million, of them.
Antarctic shags (Leucocarbo bransfieldensis) are the only type of cormorant found in Antarctica, where they’re often seen near penguin species such as this Adélie.
The warty yellow caruncle on an Antarctic shag’s forehead and its blue eye – in fact, blue skin surrounding the eye – are its key characteristics.
Southern giant petrels (Macronectes giganteus) can have a wingspan exceeding 2m and weigh more than 5kg.
The Drake Passage is renowned for rough seas but it’s also replete with birdlife, such as this (left) southern fulmar (Fulmarus glacialoides) and (right) pintado petrel (Daption capense).