Blue penguin facts

* The blue penguin is the world's smallest and the only penguin species that is nocturnal on land.

* Although quite common, its size and unusual habits make it rarely seen.

* The penguins come ashore only in darkness and live in burrows.

* They breed in burrows, under trees and other vegetation, in piles of driftwood, in rock crevices, under buildings and in caves.

* Blue penguins usually breed for the first time at 2-3 years of age.

* Their ability to fledge chicks from more than one clutch during a single breeding season makes them unique among penguin species.

* The core egg-laying period for most of NZ is September to November.

* Eggs are incubated for 36 days.

* Both parents share incubation and feeding duties; at least one adult will stay in the burrow all day throughout incubation and guard periods.

* The chicks are guarded for the first 2-3 weeks, after which both parents must go to sea to keep up the supply of fish.

* Chick growth is rapid, with adult weight (1kg) being achieved in 4-5 weeks.

* Chicks usually fledge at 8 weeks and are independent from then on.

* There is a high rate of juvenile mortality, but individuals can reach up to 25 years of age.

Source: New Zealand Herald

Ends of the Earth: From Polar Bears to Penguins

Ends of the Earth: From Polar Bears to Penguins at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia takes visitors from one end of our globe to the other to explore the fascinating—and frigid—worlds of the Arctic and Antarctic through interactive exhibits and multimedia experiences.

Slide like a penguin. Study their feathers under a microscope in the Penguin Lab. Check out a real penguin skeleton and find out why penguins are black and white. Learn what researchers are discovering about penguins, including their feeding, family life, and unique locomotion. Then, match your skills against those of penguin parents in the "Feed the Chick Game”. Fish for krill and race your opponent back to the nest!

Humboldt Baby at Brookfield Zoo

This Humboldt penguin chick hatched Jan. 31 at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo.

The chick is now being fed by hand after not gaining enough weight naturally. Six times a day, the unnamed penguin swallows down a "shake" made of liquefied herring, cepelin fish, vitamins and Pedialyte -- the dehydration fluid familiar to most moms and dads.

The chick lives in a temperature-controlled brooder shared with plush penguins to minimize the chance of the chick becoming attached to humans.












Humboldt penguins ... did you know?

• Using their wings as flippers, Humboldts "fly" underwater, usually just below the surface, at speeds of up to 20 miles per hour. They steer with their feet and tail.

• A special gland allows them to drink salt water.

• Humboldts lay their eggs in layers of dried feces, or guano, left by seabirds.

• Once numbering in hundreds of thousands, their population is now estimated to be about 41,000. Guano harvesting -- it's used in fertilizer and gunpowder -- as well as overfishing and climate change has stressed the breed.

• They avoid over-heating by flushing pink on their face, wings and feet. This sheds body heat by sending blood to the bare part of their bodies.

• Humboldts live approximately 20 years in the wild and up to 30 years in zoos. They weigh about 10 pounds. The South American natives are found off the coasts of Peru and Chile.

Source: Chicago Sun-Times

Penguin Infobook

Sea World Infobook on Penguins is a great resource for penguin lovers, teachers and students. The website also includes a printable .PDF resource.

The World of Penguins

We all have an image of penguins gliding on ice at the South Pole -- images that come from childhood. But contrary to popular belief penguins live beyond Antarctica, and can be found in New Zealand, southern Africa, and South America. While some species have adapted to life in regions that reach 100 degrees below zero others are comfortable in temperatures 100 degrees above. The classic tuxedoed penguins are found in Antarctica, along with the largest, the Emperor penguins, while Jackass penguins flourish in Namibia and South Africa and Humboldts live on a desert landscape near the coasts of Peru and Chile.

The Physics Of Penguin Poop

Benno Meyer-Rochow, of the International University of Bremen, Germany, and Jozsef Gal from Loránd Eötvös University in Hungary found that adult penguins generate a pressure up to 60 kPa (450 mm Hg) to expel their faeces, which equals about twice the pressure of an ordinary car tire and is considerably higher than that of other birds.
(via)

The Penguin Foundation

The Penguin Foundation was established to protect and preserve one of Australia’s most important natural assets – the Little Penguins.

The Penguin Foundation raises and allocates funds to projects ranging from penguin rescue and rehabilitation in the event of a man-made disaster; to building new penguin nesting areas; monitoring penguin health and behaviour; and protecting the Little Penguins’ natural environment. Resources will also be used to undertake other associated wildlife and conservation activities on and around Phillip Island.

Penguin Identification Chart

Click for larger photo.

The Scoop on Penguins - Feathered Fish or Bodacious Bird?

What swims like an olympic champion? What plunges underwater holding its breath like a free diver? What slides like a baseball player racing to reach base?

A penguin, of course!

Penguins are birds that can toboggan on ice using their webbed feet to propel them. The fastest penguin, the gentoo, can swim about 15 miles per hour, faster than long-distance runners. Penguins can also dive very deep, some to depths of about 1,750 feet. They use their wings (which are really like flippers) to propel themselves in the water. It looks as if they are “flying” underwater, something they cannot do in the air.

How to pick out a penguin

It has long been a source of wonder to nature watchers. As huge throngs of seemingly identical penguins crowd the South Atlantic shoreline, birds returning from long fishing trips can unerringly pick out their relatives in the midst of what sounds like bedlam.

Now scientists have discovered that, against all odds, penguins can recognise their significant other by their individual call.

During the research, reported in the journal Animal Behavior, calls made by individual penguins were recorded and then played back to them to see who recognised what. The birds succeeded in identifying their mates, a particularly important ability because penguins share parenting and must be able to find one another quickly when they have been away at sea searching for food.

The research also shows that chicks can home in on the calls of their parents, and ignore the noises being made by other birds. Chicks often wander off when the parents are away and need to recognise calls when they get back to the nest. If they approach adults that are not their parents, they may be subject to a physical attack.

Penguins - Flightless Wonders Of The Animal World

Even though their wings are useless for venturing into the sky, don’t feel sorry for the penguin. They spend a majority of their time “flying” through the water sometimes at speeds up to 30 miles per hour. A penguin’s body is streamlined for zooming through the water - the flippers providing the speed, the feet and tail used for steering and braking. Not only are they great at maneuvering underwater, some penguins species are like tiny submarines. Gentoo penguins for example, can stay underwater for up to seven minutes and reach depths of nearly 330 feet.

Pete & Barb's Penguin Pages

Inside this site you will find everything you want to know about penguins. There are more than 150 information pages and 250 photographs.

Penguin Close-up

There's also a great description of Humboldt Penguins
from flickr, by Sunshine Hanan

Jackass penguin - Spheniscus dermersus

Named after a donkey because of the loud, braying noise it makes, the Jackass penguin is no fool. It has so far survived many oil spills, poachers and predatory fishermen who have depleted its food stocks.

This flightless seabird is found nowhere in the world except off the coast of southern Africa, thus making it endemic to this area. It breeds on 24 offshore islands between Namibia and Port Elizabeth, including Dassen, Dyer, Jutten and Robben Island in the Western Cape region of South Africa and Boulders Beach and Betty's Bay near Cape Town. Nesting on the mainland is unusual for jackass penguins because they are ground-nesting birds and are vulnerable to the many predators on the mainland.

What is a penguin?

penguin: originally the common name for the now extinct great auk of the N Atlantic and now used, starting in the 19th cent., for the unrelated antarctic diving birds. more

Simon's Town Penguin Colony

Simon's Town is a village and a naval base in South Africa, near Cape Town. It is located roughly on the border between the Atlantic and the Indian oceans.

In 1983 a pair of African penguins were spotted on Foxy Beach at Boulders and in 1985 they began to lay. Since then the colony has grown rapidly, increasing initially at about 60% a year.

By 1997 there were 2350 adult birds. Such a quick growth of the colony was the result of immigration, particularly from Dyer Island, as well as by reproduction. Birds have probably come to False Bay because of the good fishing available since commercial purse seine fishing has been banned in the Bay.

Although Simon's Town is very proud of its penguins, nearby residents suffered badly as the birds invaded their gardens, destroyed the undergrowth and were generally very noisy and messy. The great increase in tourists has also been a problem. As a result, the area has now been taken over by Cape Peninsula National Park, the birds have been restrained from wandering inland by a fence, board walks and an information room have all been established.

How come penguins are black and white?

How come penguins are black and white?

They're not!

Of course, while traditional tuxedos (and penguins) are black and white, there are exceptions. Just as there are those who wear lime green tuxedos with matching cummerbunds to their high school prom, so there are penguins that break the black-and-white mold. Fairy penguins have dark blue feathers in place of the black, which is why these birds are also called "Little Blues."

New Zealand Penguins

Guide to the various species of penguins in the New Zealand region, their habits,
conservation and where to view them.

A look at the lives of the world's best-dressed animals - penguins!

Real penguins don't have time for dancing and singing.

So what would life be like for a real-life Mumble the Penguin, the star of the recent movie "Happy Feet"?

"The real emperor penguins live in the harshest of environments, and although they are in many ways marvelously adapted to surviving there, they still do have it tough, particularly the young ones," said Barbara Wienecke, an Australian scientist who has been fascinated by penguins all her life.

Finding food, staying warm and raising families - none of these is easy for penguins.

It doesn't take singing or dancing, but finding a mate is hard work, too. Emperor penguins go courting by calling (they make a trumpet-like sound), head circling and bowing, said Tom Schneider, curator of birds at the Detroit Zoo.

Once a pair clicks, they take great care of their chicks.

"Very young chicks, when they are still being brooded, or guarded by their parents, can have an air of contentment about them when they are warm and well-fed and the sun is shining," Wienecke said. "It is absolutely beautiful to see the little guys with full tummies lean back against mum or dad, eyes half closed, little toes lifted off the ice and occasionally glancing up to make sure that mum or dad are still there."

Penguins, Cuter on Film Than in Real Life, Outgross Cats, Pigs

What's up with all these penguin movies?

Sure, penguins appear cute on the screen, real or animated. But zoo personnel don't always find them that cute. Rick Yazzolino, a penguin keeper at the Oregon Zoo in Portland, said they bite hard and use their stumpy flippers to slap around anyone who annoys them.

``I've been bitten hundreds of times,'' he said. ``There's not a day that goes by I don't go home without a wound, a sore or cut on my hands.''

One more thing, he said: They don't sing or tap dance.

So what is it about cinematic penguins that makes them more attractive than most other animals?

George Miller, who directed ``Happy Feet,'' said the birds' anthropomorphic qualities, like the way they walk, account for much of their popularity. Also, he said, ``only in the last decade or so has there been serious documentary footage out of Antarctica. It's tough to get around Antarctica.''

Gil Myers, an area supervisor for penguins at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, where penguins remain one of the major attractions, said they also benefit from a growing public awareness that global warming and overfishing are threatening the habitats of some species, a major theme in ``Happy Feet.''