Penguins are birds that cannot fly. Penguins are expert swimmers. Penguins have webbed feet. Penguins swim by pushing themselves along with their flippers. An emperor penguin can dive more than 500 meters deep. The longest emperor penguin dive on record lasted 22 minutes. Most dives last 3 to 6 minutes. Penguins have short, overlapping feathers that form a waterproof coat. Emperor penguins stay warm with several layers of scale-like feathers and a layer of fat.

Penguins have black on their backs and white on their bellies. The black and white coloring is called countershading. It makes a penguin hard to see in the water.

Penguins catch fish and other small sea animals to eat. Krill live in dense swarms and are key to the Antarctic ecosystem. Macaroni penguins live almost entirely on krill.

Adelie penguins are hunted mostly by leopard seals. Skuas take their eggs and chicks.

Many penguins return to the same mate and the same nest site year after year. Penguins lay only one or two eggs at a time. Emperor penguins breed in the middle of the Antarctic winter. A father emperor penguin keeps the egg warm. The egg is on top of his feet, under a flap of skin. He stands with the egg for about 65 days. While he holds the egg, he eats nothing. He loses about 40 percent of his body weight.

Most penguins live south of the equator, in the Southern Hemisphere. Only two kinds of penguin, the emperor and the Adelie, are true residents of the Antarctic continent.

The Galapagos penguin lives on islands on the equator. It is the only wild penguin found north of the equator. As of November 2026, the Galapagos penguin is endangered.

Emperor penguins can live 20 years or more.

The name Kumimanu, given to a giant fossil penguin, means "monster bird" in Maori.

Words to know

• countershading: hiding colors
• krill: tiny sea animals
• ecosystem: living community