In a land where rain rarely falls and the desert stretches to the sea, a penguin once waddled into the imagination of an ancient people.

More than 1,600 years ago, on the parched southwestern coast of what is now Peru, a Nazca artist shaped clay into a striking likeness of a bird most modern minds associate with Antarctica. The finished vessel, just over eight inches tall, sports tiny protruding clay wings, a characteristic painted body, and a bill. There is no mistaking it: this is a penguin and a very specific one at that.

According to experts at the Art Institute of Chicago, which houses the piece, the vessel is a rare ceramic depiction of the Humboldt penguin (Spheniscus humboldti). Today, the species is classified as vulnerable. But in the first centuries A.D., these birds flourished along Peru’s frigid Pacific coast, cooled by ocean currents.

Antarctic Waters Fed Nazca Imagination

The Nazca lived between 100 B.C. and A.D. 800 in what scientists call a tropical desert. Yet just offshore, the sea teemed with life. The Humboldt Current, a powerful flow of cold water surging northward from Antarctica, chilled the equatorial ocean and enabled cold-adapted species like the penguin to thrive in an otherwise scorching region.

Their most famous legacy, the Nazca Lines, consists of hundreds of massive geoglyphs etched into the desert floor. Some stretch longer than a skyscraper is tall. Viewed best from above, these lines form stylized images of animals: a monkey, a whale, a hummingbird, even a spider.

Yet less known are the Nazca ceramics, finely crafted and vividly painted. These vessels depict gods, humans, and animals with extraordinary detail. And just like the geoglyphs, many focus on creatures that held symbolic power or captured the attention of an artist attuned to the natural world.

That includes penguins.

“This vessel, with its tiny, sculpted wings, is a rare depiction of a Humboldt penguin,” the Art Institute notes. The piece, they say, dates from between A.D. 350 and 500, a time when Nazca artisans were experimenting with increasingly realistic forms. Other vessels from this era show lobsters, birds, and a recurring motif scholars have dubbed the “mythical killer whale.”

The Humboldt penguin is a black-and-white coastal bird that thrives along the dry, rocky shores of Peru and Chile. It owes its survival in this hot region to the cold, nutrient-rich Humboldt Current. Unlike other penguins, Humboldt penguins nest in burrows or coastal caves to escape the heat. They’re also famously known for their unusual method of marking territory: by projectile defecation. These birds are nowadays facing mounting threats from climate change and human activity.

The Penguin Vessel was collected in Peru in the late 19th century and entered the Art Institute of Chicago’s collection thanks to the Kate S. Buckingham Endowment. It stands at 20.8 centimeters tall and 14.3 centimeters wide. Its form is both playful and precise. Even though the Nazca had no written language, their pottery reveals a society deeply engaged with the creatures sharing their coast.

Today, the same Humboldt penguins that once inspired ancient potters are now struggling to survive. Rising ocean temperatures, overfishing, and habitat loss have made the species increasingly vulnerable. What was once common enough to depict in pottery now risks vanishing from the landscape altogether.