Macaroni penguin been considered separate species, but the close similarities of their DNA sequences has led some, such as the Australian ornithologists Les Christidis and Walter Boles, to treat the royal as a subspecies of the macaroni. The two species are very similar in appearance; the royal penguin has a white face instead of the usually black face of the macaroni. Interbreeding with the Indo-Pacific subspecies of the southern rockhopper penguin ("E. chrysocome filholi") has been reported at Heard and Marion Islands, with three hybrids recorded there by a 1987–88 Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition. The macaroni penguin is a large, crested
Macaroni office (see modern Eastern Thrace's μαχαρωνιά - "macharōnia" in the sense of "rice-based dish served at the funeral"), in which case, the term would be composed of the double root of μακάριος "blessed" and αἰωνίος ("aiōnios"), "eternally". The second is the Greek μακαρία "barley broth", which would have added the suffix "-one". In his book "Delizia! The Epic History of Italians and their Food" (2007), John Dickie instead says that the word macaroni, and its earlier variants like "maccheroni", "comes from "maccare", meaning to pound or crush." The word first appears in English as "makerouns" in the 1390 "Forme of