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30 sourced facts

Fun Facts About Penguins

Deep-diving, pebble-giving, seawater-drinking: true facts about penguins.

Some male penguins give pebbles to females they want to mate with.

Emperor penguins can dive more than 500 metres deep.

Emperor penguin dads keep their egg warm on their feet for about two months.

Only one kind of penguin lives naturally north of the equator, and only just.

Penguins can drink seawater.

Emperor penguins are the tallest penguins, standing about 1.1 meters tall.

A penguin’s black and white coloring is camouflage.

Penguins cannot fly, but their wings work as flippers underwater.

Emperor penguins huddle in groups of thousands to survive the cold.

The smallest penguin is about 30 centimeters tall.

Penguins have very densely packed feathers to keep them warm and waterproof.

Giant penguins as tall as a person once lived.

There are about 18 species of penguin.

King penguins are the second-largest penguins.

Adélie penguins are named after a French explorer’s wife.

Chinstrap penguins are named for the thin black line under their chin.

Macaroni penguins are named after an 18th-century fashion.

African penguins bray like donkeys.

You can watch wild penguins on a beach near Cape Town.

Penguins replace all their feathers at once every year.

Many penguins live mainly on krill, fish and squid.

Penguins leap out of the water as they swim.

Penguins slide on their bellies to travel over ice.

Leopard seals are a major predator of penguins.

Penguin parents find their chicks among thousands by sound.

Penguins sneeze out salt.

The African penguin is critically endangered.

The yellow-eyed penguin of New Zealand is one of the rarest penguins.

World Penguin Day is celebrated on 25 April.

Rockhopper penguins hop from rock to rock.

Fun Facts About Penguins: all 30, explained

Some male penguins give pebbles to females they want to mate with.
Gentoo and Adélie penguins build nests from stones, and good pebbles are precious. Males present pebbles to females, and the pair use them to build a nest that keeps their eggs above meltwater. Penguins also steal stones from their neighbors.
Source: Gentoo penguin (Wikipedia) · Fact card
Emperor penguins can dive more than 500 metres deep.
The emperor penguin is the deepest-diving bird. Dives of over 500 metres have been recorded, and they can stay underwater for more than 20 minutes while hunting fish, squid and krill.
Source: Emperor penguin (Wikipedia) · Fact card
Emperor penguin dads keep their egg warm on their feet for about two months.
After the female lays a single egg, the male balances it on his feet under a fold of skin through the Antarctic winter, eating nothing until the chick hatches. Males huddle together in large groups to survive the cold.
Source: Emperor penguin (Wikipedia) · Fact card
Only one kind of penguin lives naturally north of the equator, and only just.
Penguins live almost entirely in the Southern Hemisphere. The Galápagos penguin, which lives around islands on the equator, is the only species whose range crosses into the north.
Source: Galápagos penguin (Wikipedia) · Fact card
Penguins can drink seawater.
A gland above a penguin’s eyes filters excess salt from its blood. The salty fluid drains out through the bill, which is why penguins sometimes seem to sneeze or drip.
Source: Supraorbital gland (Wikipedia) · Fact card
Emperor penguins are the tallest penguins, standing about 1.1 meters tall.
Emperors breed during the Antarctic winter. Males balance the egg on their feet for about two months without eating.
Source: Emperor penguin (Wikipedia) · Fact card
A penguin’s black and white coloring is camouflage.
Seen from above, the black back blends with the dark sea. Seen from below, the white belly blends with the bright surface.
Source: Countershading (Wikipedia) · Fact card
Penguins cannot fly, but their wings work as flippers underwater.
Gentoo penguins are the fastest swimmers, reaching about 36 km/h.
Source: Gentoo penguin (Wikipedia) · Fact card
Emperor penguins huddle in groups of thousands to survive the cold.
Birds take turns moving between the warm middle and the cold edge of the huddle.
Source: Emperor penguin (Wikipedia) · Fact card
The smallest penguin is about 30 centimeters tall.
The little penguin, also called the fairy or little blue penguin, lives in southern Australia and New Zealand.
Source: Little penguin (Wikipedia) · Fact card
Penguins have very densely packed feathers to keep them warm and waterproof.
Tightly overlapping feathers and a layer of fat trap heat, and penguins spread oil from a gland near the tail to waterproof them.
Source: Penguin (Wikipedia) · Fact card
Giant penguins as tall as a person once lived.
Fossils from New Zealand and Antarctica show ancient penguins that stood up to around 1.6 to 2 meters tall.
Source: Palaeeudyptes klekowskii (Wikipedia) · Fact card
There are about 18 species of penguin.
They range from the little penguin of Australia and New Zealand to the emperor penguin of Antarctica.
Source: Penguin (Wikipedia) · Fact card
King penguins are the second-largest penguins.
They stand about 90 centimeters tall and live on sub-Antarctic islands such as South Georgia.
Source: King penguin (Wikipedia) · Fact card
Adélie penguins are named after a French explorer’s wife.
Explorer Jules Dumont d’Urville named Adélie Land in Antarctica, and the penguin, after his wife Adèle in 1840.
Source: Adélie penguin (Wikipedia) · Fact card
Chinstrap penguins are named for the thin black line under their chin.
They are among the most numerous penguins and nest on rocky slopes in Antarctica and nearby islands.
Source: Chinstrap penguin (Wikipedia) · Fact card
Macaroni penguins are named after an 18th-century fashion.
Their yellow head plumes reminded English sailors of "macaronis", young men who wore flamboyant hats and feathers.
Source: Macaroni penguin (Wikipedia) · Fact card
African penguins bray like donkeys.
Their loud calls earned them the old name "jackass penguin". They live on the coasts of South Africa and Namibia.
Source: African penguin (Wikipedia) · Fact card
You can watch wild penguins on a beach near Cape Town.
A colony of African penguins lives at Boulders Beach in Simon’s Town, where boardwalks let visitors watch them.
Source: Boulders Beach (Wikipedia) · Fact card
Penguins replace all their feathers at once every year.
During this "catastrophic molt" they cannot swim, so they fatten up beforehand and fast on land for two to three weeks.
Source: Moulting (Wikipedia) · Fact card
Many penguins live mainly on krill, fish and squid.
Krill, tiny shrimp-like animals, are a key food for Adélie and chinstrap penguins in the Southern Ocean.
Source: Antarctic krill (Wikipedia) · Fact card
Penguins leap out of the water as they swim.
This "porpoising" lets them breathe without slowing down and may help them escape predators.
Source: Penguin (Wikipedia) · Fact card
Penguins slide on their bellies to travel over ice.
Called tobogganing, it saves energy compared with waddling.
Source: Penguin (Wikipedia) · Fact card
Leopard seals are a major predator of penguins.
They often wait near the ice edge where penguins enter the water.
Source: Leopard seal (Wikipedia) · Fact card
Penguin parents find their chicks among thousands by sound.
Each penguin has a distinctive call, and parents and chicks recognize each other’s voices in noisy colonies.
Source: Emperor penguin (Wikipedia) · Fact card
Penguins sneeze out salt.
A gland above the eyes filters extra salt from the blood, which then drips out of the bill.
Source: Supraorbital gland (Wikipedia) · Fact card
The African penguin is critically endangered.
Its numbers have fallen sharply because of food shortages, oil spills and habitat loss.
Source: African penguin (Wikipedia) · Fact card
The yellow-eyed penguin of New Zealand is one of the rarest penguins.
It nests in coastal forest and scrub and appears on New Zealand’s five-dollar note.
Source: Yellow-eyed penguin (Wikipedia) · Fact card
World Penguin Day is celebrated on 25 April.
The date is linked to the annual northward migration of Adélie penguins in Antarctica.
Source: Penguin (Wikipedia) · Fact card
Rockhopper penguins hop from rock to rock.
Instead of sliding or waddling, they jump with both feet together up steep, rocky shores.
Source: Rockhopper penguin (Wikipedia) · Fact card

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