A study by researchers from Chile and the University of California proposes recognizing the southeastern gentoo penguin (Pygoscelis kerguelensis) as a species in its own right — the first new penguin species to be named in 100 years.

The birds live on the Kerguelen Islands in the Indian Ocean, also called the Desolation Islands, nearly 2,000 miles from any permanent habitation.

Gentoo penguins were long treated as one species, but the researchers conclude there are four separate lineages: northern, southern, southeastern and eastern.

What makes the find surprising is that these penguins are a textbook 'cryptic species' — populations so alike that you cannot tell them apart by eye.

Gentoos all share the broad white head stripe from eye to eye, and at roughly 29 to 35 inches tall and 10 to 18 pounds, the third-largest penguin shows only small variations in size and vocalizations between populations.

Yet the four groups evolved separately over 300,000 to 500,000 years, kept apart by site fidelity to their nesting colonies and the oceanic barrier of the Antarctic Polar Front.

The evidence is genetic. Researchers studied DNA from 64 gentoo penguins drawn from ten breeding colonies across the species' range, finding clear genetic differences matching each population's location.

Only small physical and vocal differences exist between the groups, so genetics carried the case for full species status.

Notably, the same DNA-first approach is reshaping taxonomy elsewhere: The Business Standard reports that a new mayfly, Ephemera primitiva, was confirmed in Bangladesh at Khaiyachhara Waterfall using physical traits plus mitochondrial COI DNA compared against eight other Asian Ephemera species.

The reclassification carries real conservation weight. As one species, gentoos are listed as Least Concern, but the southeastern gentoo alone has a much smaller population and a much smaller geographic range.

A-Z Animals notes that the habitats of the three sub-Antarctic populations could become unsuitable by 2050 as the climate warms, while southern gentoos in Antarctica may even benefit from an expanded range.

Invasive predators such as cats and rats, plus habitat loss, add pressure on an animal confined to a few isolated islands.

The four gentoo species have not yet been formally recognized; the study proposes the southeastern gentoo alongside the other three populations currently treated as subspecies, so formal acceptance is the next hurdle.

If it comes, conservation organizations and local governments would be urged to work together to protect these isolated birds.

The discovery also flags knowledge gaps in other freshwater and island ecosystems — the Bangladeshi mayfly study, per The Business Standard, called for better waste management at Khaiyachhara, where plastic and food waste from tourists is threatening the nymphs' riverbed habitat.