Imperial Cormorants

Description:

There is a large Imperial Cormorant breeding colony on abandoned docks in Punta Arenas, Chile. Male Imperial cormorants are noted for the ring of blue skin around their eyes and orange-yellow nasal knob.

Habitat:

Breeding colony on abandoned docks, Punta Arenas, Chile.

Notes:

The imperial shag (Phalacrocorax atriceps) is a black and white cormorant native to many subantarctic islands, the Antarctic Peninsula and southern South America, primarily in rocky coastal regions, but locally also at large inland lakes. It is sometimes placed in the genus Leucocarbo instead. It is also known as the blue-eyed shag, blue-eyed cormorant and by many other names, and is one of a larger group of cormorants called blue-eyed shags. The taxonomy is very complex, and several subspecies are often considered separate species. Wikipedia