Summary
ABSTRACT. The exploration of eastern Prydz Bay, East Antarctica, is discussed using temporally and spatially increasing information on the distribution (and size) of Adélie penguin Pygoscelis adeliae colonies as an index of activities undertaken by various nations there. While Norwegian explorers discovered the area in 1935, and revisited it in 1937, their contribution to information regarding the penguins local distribution and status was minimal, reflecting both the limited time ashore or in flight over land, and the wider imperatives driving their investigations. Photographs taken during the American Operation Highjump (1947) had the potential to delimit breeding sites (if not actual size) but this was never fully realised, and the earlier, private Ellsworth expedition in 1938 added few details. Only when observations by Australian expeditioners, supplemented to some extent by those from Soviet Russia, were begun in the mid 1950s did available information increase. The location of breeding sites was advanced by use of topographic maps developed from the earlier Norwegian activities, and subsequent surveys undertaken by Australian and Russian expeditioners. By the time the Australian station Davis was established in the Vestfold Hills, Princess Elizabeth Land, in January 1957, at least five Adélie penguin breeding sites were known around eastern Prydz Bay. Between 1957 and 1973, when the first review of existing data was conducted, the listing increased to 24 sites, many found by field parties operating from Davis. Most were north of the Sørsdal Glacier, which apparently acted as a temporary barrier to land-based exploration. A review of data to 1980 showed 20 sites in the Vestfold Hills (including Long Peninsula), added two in the Rauer Group but omitted some recorded earlier. A dedicated ground survey of the Vestfold Hills in November 1973 increased the known number of sites slightly, discounted others which had been erroneously located, and