Genus of birds
The genus Pygoscelis ("rump-legged") contains three living species of penguins collectively known as "brush-tailed penguins".
Taxonomy.
Mitochondrial and nuclear DNA evidence suggests the genus split from other penguins around 38 million years ago, about 2 million years after the ancestors of the genus "Aptenodytes". In turn, the Adelie penguins split off from the other members of the genus around 19 million years ago.
!scope="col" style="width:15%; min-width:180px;"|Common name
!scope="col" style="width:25%;"|Scientific name and subspecies
!scope="col" style="width:15%; min-width:180px;"|Range
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!scope="row"|Adélie penguin
!scope="row"|Chinstrap penguin
!scope="row"|Gentoo penguin
A 2020 study found that the gentoo penguin may actually comprise a species complex of 4 similar but genetically distinct species: the northern gentoo penguin ("P. papua"), the southern gentoo penguin ("P. ellsworthi"), the eastern gentoo penguin ("P. taeniata"), and the newly-described South Georgia gentoo penguin ("P. poncetii"). However, in 2021 the International Ornithological Congress recognized these as being subspecies of "P. papua".
A study has estimated that there are about 3.79 million pairs of Adélie, 387,000 pairs of gentoo, and 8 million pairs of chinstrap penguins in their particular areas, making up 90% of Antarctic avian biomass.
The latter two are tentatively assigned to this genus.
References.
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