I´ve had many request
for more general facts about penguins,
especially for various
school projects. I started a little page with a few
vital facts and hope to
add more stuff.
Penguins:
Flightless, aquatic birds living
in the southern hemisphere.
They have three layers of
short thick feathers
and are insulated from
the freezing waters by a layer
of fat underneath the feathers.
The feathers are
water-repellant.The
wings are stiff fin-like flippers
used for swimming. While swimming
they use their
feet and tail as rudders.
Species:
There are 17 or 18 species,
which you can see more
closely described and pictured
HERE.
Most of them live in
Antarctica and islands
close to Antarctica, but there are
also penguins in Australia,
New Zealand, South Africa,
Galapagos and South America.
Four of the species are threatened,
Galapagos, Yellow-
Eyed, African and Humboldt.
Page
1:
Emperor - King - Little
Blue - White-flippered (Aptenodytes and Eudyptula)
Page
2:
Rockhopper - Macaroni -
Fiordland - Snares Island - Erect Crested - Royal (Eudyptes)
Page
3:
Chinstrap - Gentoo - Adelie
- Yellow-Eyed (Pygoscelis and Megadyptes)
Page
4:
Magellanic - Galapagos
- African - Humboldt (Spheniscus)
Rookery:
Penguins gather to breed
during the mating season
in rookeries. A rookery
can contain several thousands, even
millions of penguins,
even of different species, and
come back to the same place
generation
after generation.
Therefor the area in, and
to and from the rookery has paths
made by generations.
The baby penguin is called
a chick. The penguin lays two eggs
(except for the Emperor and
King which lay one egg),
which are hatched by
the father while the mother goes out
to feed. Usually only one
egg hatches, or only one chick
survives. The hatchingtime
is 33-62 days, depending on
the species.
Food and enemies:
Penguins feed on fish,
shrimp, octopus, krill and other
small sea animals.
Natural enemies are
sea lions, leopard seals, killer sharks,
sharks and larger birds will
snatch the chicks and eggs.
Other threats to the
penguin are oil spills, fishing, human
intrusion on penguin areas.
The penguin´s black
and white colors helps them to
camouflage in the water.
Various facts:
A penguin usually lives
15 to 20 years.
They molt their feathers
in huge patches once a year and
develop new feathers.
Penguins are very social
and bound to one partner
their whole life.
Penguins are usually calm
and fearless, which makes them
very popular. They can however
be aggressive. The Rockhopper
is the most aggressive of
the species.
They walk, hop or slide on
their stommachs (called
toboggan) on land, and swim
very fast and easily,
using their flippers, feet
and tail for speed and
direction.
Here you can see their sizes, how much they vary from the largest
to the smallest penguin.
