The earliest scientific description was made in 1781 by Johann Reinhold Forster with a type locality in the Falkland Islands.

The species calls in a variety of ways, but the most frequently heard is a loud trumpeting, which the bird emits with its head thrown back.

[8] The specific name papua is a misnomer; in the original description, Johann Reinhold Forster, a naturalist who had circumnavigated the world with Captain James Cook, mistakenly assumed that the species occurred in Papua (New Guinea), the closest gentoos being over 6000 km to the south (on Macquarie Island).

[9] Others trace the error to a "possibly fraudulent claim" in 1776 by French naturalist Pierre Sonnerat, who also alleged a Papuan location for the king penguin despite never having been to the island himself.

[13] The gentoo penguin is easily recognised by the wide, white stripe extending like a bonnet across the top of its head and its bright orange-red bill.

In colonies farther inland, where the penguins nest in grassy areas, they shift location slightly yearly because the grass becomes trampled over time.

Gentoos breed monogamously and infidelity is typically punished with banishment from the colony.

The stones are jealously guarded, and their ownership can be the subject of noisy disputes and physical attacks between individuals.

Gentoos are opportunistic feeders, and around the Falklands are known to take roughly equal proportions of fish (Patagonotothen sp., Thysanopsetta naresi, Micromesistius australis), squat lobsters (Munida gregaria) and squid (Loligo gahi, Gonatus antarcticus, Moroteuthis ingens).

As the embryo grows and requires more oxygen, consumption increases exponentially until the gentoo chick hatches.

Skuas on King George Island have been observed attacking and injuring adult gentoo penguins in apparent territorial disputes.

Due to regional climate changes, they colonise previously inaccessible territories southwards.As of 2019[update], the IUCN Red List lists the gentoo as least concerned with a stable population trend, although rapid declines in some key areas are believed to be driving a moderate overall decline in the species population.

Examples include Bird Island, South Georgia, where the population has fallen by two-thirds over 25 years.

[1] Many threats to this species, including pollution, hunting, fishing and human recreational activities continue to affect them.

This article incorporates text from the ARKive fact-file "Gentoo penguin" under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License and the GFDL.