A white sandy beach with calm light blue waves rolling in. Large rock formations are seen in the surf and in the foreground. Clumps of brown seaweed are scattered throughout the beach. On the left, a cameraman in a blue collared shirt and khaki shorts kneels barefoot in the sand facing away from the viewer towards a group of four African penguins. The cameraman is looking into a large video camera on a tripod. The black and white penguins appear to be about one foot tall; three of the four are preening their feathers, and one penguin looks directly at the man’s camera.

Rockhopper Record-Breaker: World-First Footage Captured for Nat Geo’s Secrets of the Penguins

By the D23 Team

It’s Earth Month, and that means that National Geographic is back with another installment of its eye-opening Secrets Of franchise. This year, Nat Geo is exposing the incredible world of penguins—from emperor penguins surviving in Antarctica to industrious Galapagos penguins living above the equator.

To capture the lives of these amazing, resilient birds, National Geographic also had to be adaptive and create new methods for filming in the hard-to-reach places where penguins live. The series was filmed over two years—and over 70 personnel were deployed across nine locations around the globe, where an incredible 14-plus different camera systems were developed and used on land, underwater, and aerially.

Due to this amazing production, the Secret of the Penguins team was able to observe previously unseen penguin behaviors and capture exclusive, world-first footage of truly jaw-dropping moments! Check out this sneak peek of what’s in store for viewers of this latest Nat Geo series:

A large group of Emperor penguin chicks jumping off the ice shelf edge for their first swim in the dark blue waters of Atka Bay, Antarctica. The cliff is quite high and several penguins are mid-dive.

Emperor penguin chicks base-jumping off a 50-ft cliff

Emperor chicks have long been witnessed slipping into the water from the sea-ice’s edge, just several feet high. Capturing the bold leap of hundreds off a 50-ft ice-cliff was an incredible world-first moment, filmed in amazing detail.

An adult Gentoo penguin standing on its nest with its two young chicks. There are several other penguins in the background, set against a blue, cloud-filled sky.

Rockaroni chicks

In the Falkland Islands, the team captured very rare, mixed-species penguin pairs in unprecedented detail. These Macaroni and Rockhopper couples were followed through courtship into parenthood. In the wild, most mixed-species pairings are doomed to infertility and failure—but these penguins seem to, fortunately, buck the trend.

The team also filmed healthy Rockaroni chicks, sometimes also called Machoppers, for the very first time.  While scientists aren’t yet ready to claim this as the emergence of a new species, it is a potential sign of evolution, and an exciting genetic adaptation for future generations.

An Emperor penguin in a snowstorm; their beak and upper body is covered with ice.

Emperor penguin parents practicing egg transfers with clumps of ice

Captured during winter, a bonded pair passed an egg-sized lump of ice between them. While it’s been recorded that other penguin species attempt to incubate false eggs, the passing of ice between emperors has never been filmed before, to Nat Geo’s knowledge.

Galapagos penguins hunting black-striped salema fish in the water off the coast of Galapagos Islands. Sun streams through the water on the upper left of the image.

A rockhopper penguin fights back against a sea lion

In the Falklands, the team captured a breathtaking and unplanned moment when a small rockhopper spun around to fight back against a true “goliath”: a giant Southern Sea Lion. Despite it being many times her size, the rockhopper screamed and flapped at the sea lion, shocking it into submission... and retreat!

Excited for more? Stream Secrets of the Penguins on Disney+ and watch all these incredible world-first moments get captured in real time, alongside the experts behind the camera at National Geographic.