A penguin parade?

Source: Life
Photo: Fred Morley/Getty Images
Dec 29, 1936

What happens when penguins die?

Did you ever wonder why there are no dead penguins on the ice in Antarctica - where do they go?

Wonder no more!!!

It is a known fact that the penguin is a very ritualistic bird which lives an extremely ordered and complex life.

The penguin is very committed to its family and will mate for life, as well as maintaining a form of compassionate contact with its offspring throughout its life.

If a penguin is found dead on the ice surface, other members of the family and social circle have been known to dig holes in the ice, using their vestigial wings and beaks, until the hole is deep enough for the dead bird to be rolled into and buried.

The male penguins then gather in a circle around the fresh grave and sing: Freeze A Jolly Good Fellow.

(via Bits & Pieces)

Penguin chick has two dads

Two male Humboldt penguins cautiously guard the entrance to their cave in the "Zoo am Meer" zoological park in Bremerhaven, northern Germany, where they are fostering a six weeks old penguin chick.

After a penguin egg had been abandoned by its biological parents, it was placed in the male penguins' nest, who then adopted and hatched it.

Bremerhaven zoo veterinarian Schoene said the male birds, named Z and Vielpunkt, are one of three same-sex pairs among the zoo's 20 Humboldt penguins that have attempted to mate.

AP Photo/Focke Strangmann

Source

(via the Pet Blog)

I'm getting closer to my home

Penguins walk toward the ocean after being released near Cape Town, South Africa. The 38 birds had been treated for oil pollution they'd suffered in Namibia.

Photo: GIANLUIGI GUERCIA/AFP/Getty Images
May 26, 2009

Penguin News

Source: Life
Photo: Imagno/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1935

Look what I found at Trader Joe's!

Photo by Julie Corsi

20 Reasons to Love Penguins

Nebby has created a list of 20 reasons why she loves penguins.

Of course I agree!

Penguin Places for Penguin People

At Intelligent Travel, contributor Andrew Evans offers an all-inclusive guide to all things penguin.

Penguin Places to Visit:

Isla Magdalena, Chile
Galápagos Islands, Ecuador
Boulders Beach, Simon's Town, South Africa
Oamaru, New Zealand
Phillip Island, Australia
Falkland Islands

• Central Park Zoo (New York, NY)

• Woodland Park Zoo (Seattle, WA)

• Maryland Zoo (Baltimore, MD)

• Rosamond Gifford Zoo (Syracuse, NY)

• Oregon Zoo (Portland, OR)

• St. Louis Zoo (St. Louis, MO)

• Lowry Park Zoo (Tampa, FL)

• Philadelphia Zoo (Philadelphia, PA)

UPDATE - MORE GREAT PENGUIN PLACES TO VISIT

• The New England Aquarium (Boston, MA)

• The Henry Doorly Zoo (Omaha, NE)

• Penguin Adoption in NJ

Thanks to our great visitors, Rob, and Nothing But Penguins for these.

UPDATE #2 - HERE ARE NEW PENGUIN PLACES TO VISIT

• South Carolina Aquarium (Charleston SC) (opening March 21, 2009)

• National Aviary (Pittsburgh, PA) (opening May 23, 2009)

Video: Safety in numbers

Advertising agency Duval Guillaume produced a cute ad for Belgian bus company De Lijn, emphasizing that it’s safer to travel in groups.



Watch video

(via Presurfer)

Looks like the inauguration, doesn't it?

This amazing photo was taken on South Georgia Island. The photographer says, "This is not the largest colony of king penguins on South Georgia but there were over a hundred thousand breeding pairs in this location. The brown spots are not open spaces but chicks that have not fledged."

from Flickr, by chuck12600

Take a look at it in the largest size: 3200 x 2135. Better yet, set it as your desktop wallpaper.

(via The Pet Blog)

Make a sock penguin

As cute as a sock monkey?

This instructable will walk you through the step by step creation of a Sock Penguin. This project was completed for a Grade 1 (6 year old kids) class that has been studying penguins.

Please note that no penguins were harmed in the creation of this project, however, some socks were severely damaged in the prototyping stage. Please do not use socks that still contain feet.

Note that hot glue guns can burn you. They're called "hot" for a reason. Do not let 6 year olds operate hot glue guns. Adult supervision is required. Also, do not let 6 year olds operate heavy machinery. It's just a bad plan.

Illogical

Solitary

Stare down

from Flickr, by eclectic echoes

Hi there!

This little guy was hatched in November, 2008, and lives at Bird World at the Denver Zoo.

Source

Penguin origami

This photo is from the Peabody Essex Museum Polar Attractions exhibit.

Explore the Arctic and Antarctic through compelling works of art by 30 contemporary artists. This interactive exhibition in the museum’s Art & Nature Center highlights polar regions as distinct, biologically important systems shaped over time by cyclical changes and increasingly, by human influences. Hands-on stations offer a range of exploratory opportunities for visitors of all ages to connect with ideas presented in the exhibition.

Penguin killer fined

A southern Tasmanian man has been fined for killing a penguin that bit him.

Russell Stanley Baines pleaded guilty in the Hobart Magistrates Court to doing an act that resulted in the death of an animal.

The 29 year old was at Bicheno on Tasmania's east coast in October last year and picked up a wild penguin but became enraged when it bit him. Baines killed the bird by throwing a rock at it.

Magistrate Glenn Hay recorded a conviction and fined Baines $630.

Source

Antarctic penguins

Visit a great photo gallery from Telegraph "Emperor penguins in western Antarctica", with 22 excellent pictures of penguins in the Antarctic.

Video: Penguin Roudup

Penguins at the San Francisco Zoo express their displeasure at getting their annual vaccination for the West Nile Virus. They seem less troubled over getting their beaks trimmed.

Watch video

Source

A penguin convention

This photo is from the Peabody Essex Museum Polar Attractions exhibit.

Explore the Arctic and Antarctic through compelling works of art by 30 contemporary artists. This interactive exhibition in the museum’s Art & Nature Center highlights polar regions as distinct, biologically important systems shaped over time by cyclical changes and increasingly, by human influences. Hands-on stations offer a range of exploratory opportunities for visitors of all ages to connect with ideas presented in the exhibition.

Video: A penguin colony on the edge

In this video, Tanya Datta from BBC interviews penguin researcher, Mike Bingham, who has studied penguins for 20 years.

Watch video

A penguin afraid of water?

WHILE his feathered friends dive happily through the icy depths, poor Kentucky the penguin perches hopelessly on his favorite rock.

Why? Because he’s afraid of WATER.

He refuses to take the plunge with his other 23 penguin pals at Blackbrook Zoological Park, in Leek, Staffs.

Staff at the zoo have seen 11-year-old Kentucky become a surprise hit with visitors at the park due to his unusual phobia.

Photo: News Team International

Source: Sun

Underwater

A Humboldt penguin (Spheniscus humboldti) dives in his pool at the zoo in Nuremberg, southern Germany, on December 10, 2008.

AFP/Getty Images

Video: Not all penguins are the same

There's an interesting video posted at PenguinScience -

Blondie shows that not all penguins are the same:

Here's a very unusual black penguin:


A rare albino chick:


And here's poor Blondie.
He's had a nest every year but can't seem to find a mate.

Penguin Awareness Day

January 20 is Penguin Awareness Day.

Why is today Penguin Awareness day? No one knows.

What's so special about this day? No one knows.

So - celebrate in your own way ...

from Flickr, by ekpatterson

from Flickr, by moria

from Flickr, by rarewren

Penguins get cataracts?

Ajani doesn't just have happy feet, he has happy eyes now, too.

That's because the 14-week-old African black-footed penguin, blind since birth due to cataracts, was able to see for the first time Thursday.

Nicole MacLaren, a veterinary ophthalmologist at Eye Care for Animals in Salt Lake City, performed successful bilateral cataract surgery on the penguin, a resident of the Tautphaus Park Zoo in Idaho Falls.

Source: Deseret News

Disappearing Rockhoppers

The number of northern rockhopper penguins on the South Atlantic islands of Tristan da Cunha and Gough Islands is believed to have fallen by 90 per cent in the last 130 years.

An estimated two million of the endangered species have vanished in the last half century, according to reports, but the cause for their rapid decline remains a mystery.

More than 80 per cent of the world's northern rockhopper penguin population live on the two islands and the dramatic fall in numbers has caused concern.

The declines on Gough since the 1950s are equivalent to losing 100 birds a day for the last 50 years.

Photo: ABBIE TRAYLER-SMITH

Meet Pickles

A penguin chick hand-reared by zoo keepers after a family squabble has been named Pickles.

Keepers at Living Coasts in Torquay took in the African penguin chick when it became clear it wasn’t getting as much food as its older sibling. The chick lived the highlife for nearly 4 months, nestling indoors in a cosy den with a cuddly penguin toy for company. It returned to Penguin Beach once it was big enough to take care of itself.

Living Coasts senior head keeper Tony Durkin said: “Pickles has settled back into the colony with no problem at all."

Source

Weighing in

Penguin Sigrid stands on the scales during the annual inventory at the zoo in Hanover, western Germany, on January 12, 2009. During the last weeks, all 1,705 animals living at the zoo were weighed and measured.

AFP/Getty Images

Meeting with a Prince

Prince Albert of Monaco watches a penguin in the Antarctic continent in this photo taken January 7, 2009. Prince Albert is in the Antarctic as part of a scientific expedition. Picture taken January 7, 2009.

Photo: REUTERS/Jean-Christophe Dimino/

Is there anything cuter?

This little cutie was born on Dec. 12 at Moody Gardens in Galveston, Texas.

Penguins coming to TV

The penguins from the movie Madagascar will have their own TV show on Nickelodeon.

While you're waiting for the show to air in March of 2009, you can check out the penguin feature fun pages on the Nick website right now.

Play penguin games, watch penguin video clips and talk to other penguin fans on the message boards.

(via Nothing but Penguins)

Penguin Buddy Bag

This fully lined Penguin Buddy Bag by Stephen Joseph is made of machine washable soft terry material (100% polyester) and features a zippered opening on the top and an inner zipper pocket. Unzip the top to store all of your tots travel essentials. Also great for storing video games or pens, crayons and paper for those long car rides.

$18.99 at Peanut Gallery Gifts

New Park In Argentina Protects Penguins

The Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society's efforts to protect a wildlife-rich coastal region in South America have paid off in the form of a new coastal marine park recently signed into law by the Government of Argentina.

The park, which became official in early December protects half a million penguins along with several species of rare seabirds and the region’s only population of South American fur seals. It is the first protected area in Argentina specifically designed to safeguard not only onshore breeding colonies but also areas of ocean where wildlife feed at sea.

Source: Science Daily News

Successful Penguin-Breeding Season at Sea World

Thirty penguin chicks have been born at SeaWorld in San Diego since mid-November, marking this one of the most successful breeding seasons in the park's history, it was announced.

Among the penguin babies are seven macaroni penguins, six gentoo and 17 Adelies, according to SeaWorld.

Since 1980, more than 500 penguin chicks have been born at SeaWorld.

Source: 10news.com

Happy New Year!

Appropriate for the New Year ...

Hatching, originally uploaded by karohemd.

(via Gentoo Penguins at O'Higgins Station, Antarctica)