Penguins are birds that cannot fly, but they are expert swimmers. They swim by pushing themselves along with their flippers. Penguins also have webbed feet.
Emperor penguins can swim up to 20 kilometers an hour, and Adelie penguins swim 4 to 8 kilometers an hour. 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 catch fish and other small sea animals to eat. Little penguins hunt for small fish in shallow water close to shore. An adult emperor penguin eats 2 to 3 kilograms of food a day. Macaroni penguins live almost entirely on krill.
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 huddle close together to stay warm. Huddles can hold from under 200 emperors to 5,000 or more, packed as tightly as 10 birds to a square meter on very cold days.
Emperor penguins breed in the middle of the Antarctic winter. Penguin parents take turns keeping the eggs warm. A father emperor penguin keeps the egg warm on top of his feet, under a flap of skin. He stands with the egg for about 65 days. While he holds the egg, the father emperor eats nothing and loses about 40 percent of his body weight.
Emperor penguins build up fat before winter and live on it while they fast during breeding. Emperor penguins breed on sea ice and also hunt along its edge, so they depend on it.
Penguin chicks gather in groups called crèches while their parents go to find food. Penguin parents bring up food from their stomachs to feed their chicks. King penguins raise chicks slowly: it takes 14 to 16 months from birth to independence, and their breeding cycle is longer than any other penguin's.
Not every penguin lives in snow and ice. The Galapagos penguin lives on islands on the equator, and it is the only wild penguin found north of the equator.
Words to know
- flippers: limbs for swimming
- krill: sea food
- webbed: joined toes
- equator: Earth's middle line
- huddle: tight group
