Antarctic shag
The Antarctic shag (Leucocarbo bransfieldensis), is a marine cormorant native to the South Shetland Islands and the Antarctic peninsula in the Southern Ocean.
Genus and distribution
The Antarctic shag is one of the blue-eyed shags, sometimes placed in the genera Leucocarbo, and a subspecies of the imperial shag. Others place it in the genus Phalacrocorax. It is often treated as a full species.
The blue-eyed shags are a group of closely related cormorant taxa. All have a blue, purple or red ring around the eye (not a blue iris); other shared features are white underparts (at least in some individuals) and pink feet.
They are found around the colder parts of the Southern Hemisphere, especially near southern South America, Antarctica, and New Zealand. Many are endemic to remote islands. Determining which types are species and which are subspecies of what larger species is problematic; various recent authorities have recognized from 8 to 14 species and have placed them in a variety of genera. The common names are even more confusing, "like myriad footprints criss-crossing in the snow and about as easy to disentangle."