The penguin, believed to be suffering from a condition known as melanism, was spotted on Fortuna Bay, a sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia, about 860 miles off the Falklands.
A group of travellers had travelled to the island to watch local wildlife and one of the group, Andrew Evans, took this picture of the penguin, one of several thousand.
Biology experts say that because black penguins are particularly rare there is very little research discussing the subject.
Melanism is however, common on other animal species such as squirrels.
It is estimated that about one in every 250,000 penguins shows evidence of the condition.
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology expert Dr Allan Baker, from the University of Toronto, said the Antarctic penguin was black because it had lost control of its pigmentation patterns.
Source: telegraph.co.uk
