Cl@ssmate 35 - News.com.au

Series 11
Emperor penguins
dive under water
thetelegraph.com.au/classmate
Standing about 1m and weighing as much as 40kg, these are the biggest species
of penguin. The scientific name Aptenodytes means “unwinged diver” and
forsteri is after the naturalist Johann Forster, who travelled with Captain James
Cook and was one of the first to describe the penguins. Emperors have an amazing
breeding process. Colonies walk in lines over a distance of about 200km to reach
the same area of an ice shelf in Antarctica. They select a mate, copulate and the
female lays an egg six weeks later. She passes the egg to the male in a way that
prevents it freezing. The male holds the egg on top of his feet against some bare
skin known as the brooding patch. Females then walk to the ocean to feed while
the males huddle together during the extreme cold and darkness of winter waiting
for the egg to hatch. After the chick emerges the mother returns, finding its mate
with distinctive sounds. The chick is then passed to the mother, who feeds it by
regurgitating (vomiting) food directly into its mouth. The father, who has gone 15
weeks without food, heads to sea to feed. The parents then take it in turns to look
after the chick until it can swim and feed on its own.
A
Emperor penguin
Baby emperor
penguins frolic
on the ice
There are 18 species of penguins, although there is still some debate about
subspecies, so the number may be as high as 20. A penguin is a flightless
bird belonging to the family spheniscidae. They are exclusive to the
southern hemisphere, living between latitudes 45 and 60 degrees south.
They all have small, flipper-like wings that are used for swimming and are
well adapted to life in extremely cold weather. Many have distinctive black
and white feathers that are often compared to a man’s formal dinner suit
or tuxedo, although some species have grey feathers, yellow or orange
patches, or black stripes.
Fictional waddlers
Because they look like little people waddling around in formal suits, penguins
have been popular characters in cartoons, TV shows, films and literature.
Norman Lindsay’s 1918 book The Magic Pudding features penguin Sam Sawnoff,
whose “feet were sitting down and his body was standing up, because his feet
were so short and his body so long that he had to do both together’’.
The 1938 book Mr Popper’s Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater saw
an American family having to cope with looking after 12 penguins. Eventually
they try to work them into a stage act but when that doesn’t work out they
are sent off to the North Pole. The book was adapted to a film in 2011, starring
Jim Carrey as Mr Popper. One of cartoon crusader Batman’s arch enemies was
the aristocratic Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot, also known as The Penguin.
Created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, he first appeared in the comic strip in
1941. The animated feature Happy Feet (2006) was about an emperor penguin
who couldn’t sing but could dance. The sequel, Happy Feet 2, opens soon.
eyeball so that they can see
under water and out of the water.
n L ike other birds, penguins have
no teeth, so they swallow their
food — usually fish — whole. Their
mouth and throat is lined with
spikes that prevent the fish from
sliding back out.
n P enguins have extra layers of
body fat to help insulate them
against the cold.
n P enguins do not have light,
air-filled bones like most
species of birds because
they need the ballast
to be able to dive
underwater to catch
their prey.
Getting around
hop and jump.
their waddle, but they can
Penguins are best known for to its own height and will check ledges with
up
A penguin can jump almost
can also toboggan
can jump on to them. They
it
r
the
whe
ge
with their feet and
its beak to gau
ng
alo
lves
pushing themse
by lying flat on their belly and re they are most graceful as they reach
whe
wings. But it is under water
speeds of up to 12km/h.
Fairy penguins run along the
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(EUDYPTULA MINOR)
At just 30cm tall and weighing 1kg as an adult, this is the smallest
species of penguin. It is found only in New Zealand and Australia
and their surrounding islands. Fairy penguins make their homes
on rocky shorelines or sand dunes at night. They rush to the sea
in groups in the dark hours of the morning to feed and return to
their homes at dusk. The scientific name means “good little diver”,
but in fact they can only hold their breath for a minute and dive to
60m. They eat small schooling fish and sometimes krill, and will
occasionally swim up to 100km a day looking for food.
(SPHENISCUS MAGELLANICUS)
All penguins have a similar streamlined shape that enables them to move
quickly and gracefully through the water.
Standing 71cm tall, these penguins, named
after Portuguese explorer Ferdinand
Magellan, are mostly found in South America
and its surrounding islands. They have
distinctive white stripes on the black parts
of their head and chest. Overfishing in the
waters off South America has reduced their
numbers in recent years.
Jim Carrey in a
scene from Mr
Popper’s Penguins
Rockhopper
penguin
King penguin
(APTENODYTES PATAGONICUS)
Gentoo penguin
(EUDYPTES CHRYSOCOME)
The second biggest species of penguin,
they stand 95cm tall and weigh up to
15kg. They also have the largest beak
and can open their mouth wider than
any other penguin. They use this beak
to swallow lantern fish and squid. They
breed on Antarctic and subAntarctic islands, looking for
patches of rock or beach not
covered in snow or ice. Although
they have similar colouring to
emperor penguins, they have
a distinctive comma-shaped
orange mark on their neck.
These yellow-crested, 60cm-tall
penguins earn their name from
their ability to climb over rocks.
They have distinctive yellow
feathers on their heads and
are the most aggressive of
penguins. They often fight,
not only with other penguins
but also with humans or any
other animals that venture
too close. They breed on
sub-Antarctic islands but visit
southern Australia in winter.
(EUDYPTES CHRYSOLOPHUS)
No, they are not named macaroni penguins
because their head feathers look like
noodles. The name comes from a strange
hairstyle popular in Britain in the
18th century. About 60cm tall, they are
believed to be either related to, or the same
species as, the royal penguin. They breed on
rocky coasts of the Antarctic peninsula or on
Antarctic and sub-Antarctic islands.
Snug as an egg
Adelie penguin
Emperor and king penguins incubate eggs on the tops of their feet,
where they fit snugly because of their elliptical shape. And if the egg
happens to fall off, it will roll in a circle instead of in a straight line
away from the parent bird. Egg size varies according to the species.
(Pygoscelis adeliae)
feed
sand towards the water to
Emperor
King
Macaroni penguin
Gentoo
Magellanic
Adelie
Adelie penguins are named after the wife of French
explorer Jules Dumont d’Urville, after whom
part of Antarctica is named. The cute 60cm-tall
penguins have black faces and white circles around
their eyes. They build nests of stones and will
fight ferociously with each other in competition
for nest material. They eat krill, which makes their
droppings red. When viewed from the air their
nesting grounds appear as red patches.
NN
IVER
S
Did you know?
Magellanic penguin
The perfect build
n T he wings are too small to enable
them to fly, but are like the fins
of a fish, excellent for propelling
them through the water.
n Penguins have webbed feet to
help them swim.
n T he body is covered with
waterproof feathers that trap
air to help them stay warm.
The feathers become waterproof
with a coating of oil emitted by
a gland near the base of
the tail. Penguins use their beak
to spread the oil over all of their
feathers in a process known
as preening.
n A penguin’s eyes have a unique
flat lens at the front of the
Little
or fairy
penguin
RY
(APTENODYTES FORSTERI)
h
What is a penguin?
Emperor penguin
10t
P
enguins are an interesting breed of bird. These waddling, flightless creatures are
all native to the southern hemisphere,
many of them living in chilly climates
but some in warmer areas such as
Australia. Because of their somewhat comic
appearance they have endeared themselves to
humans, particularly through movies such as
Happy Feet and Mr Popper’s Penguins. But while
we are amused by fictional penguins, the real
birds are also fascinating animals.
SS M A
T
E
A
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C
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35
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(PYGOSCELIS PAPUA)
Although it has the word “papua” in its scientific name
the gentoo penguin is not found anywhere near New Guinea
as was once thought. Gentoos stand about 60cm tall
and weigh 5kg. They have a distinctive white mark
above their eyes and orange beaks. They like to
build elaborate nests on grassy slopes above the
beaches of mostly sub-Antarctic islands. These
nests are made of bones, stones and feathers.
n The deepest recorded dive by an emperor penguin
was to a depth of 565m. The dive was observed
near McMurdo Sound by biologist Gerry Kooyman,
who used a device he attached to the penguin that
automatically recorded the depth of the dive.
n Scientists have identified more than 40 extinct
species of penguin including one that lived as recently
as 500 years ago in New Zealand and a 1.5m tall
penguin that once lived on the coast of Peru.
n In 1935, when publisher Allen Lane was looking
for a name for his series of cheap imprints of high
quality books, his secretary suggested he call them
Penguins. Lane sent a colleague to the London Zoo to
sketch a penguin that now appears on all the Penguin
publishing house’s books.
n The Galapagos penguin lives in the tropics,
but during the heat of the day swims in the cool
currents off the islands. In the cool of night it lives
on the islands.
n The fairy penguin colony at North Head, Manly,
is protected by a springer spaniel named Eco
who keeps foxes and feral cats from attacking
the penguins.
n Because penguins often stay at sea for long
periods they have adapted to drink salt water and
filter out the salt through their nostrils.
n Penguins are believed to share a common
ancestor with albatrosses, shearwaters and
petrels. A fossil of an animal believed to be
an early ancestor of the penguin was found
in Canterbury, New Zealand, in 1980. Called
a waimanu (Maori for water bird), the flightless
bird lived about 60 million years ago.
n Although some of the penguins in the film
Mr Popper’s Penguins are computer-generated, real
penguins were used for much of the filming. The set
had to be kept at temperatures between 2C and 10C.
The penguins also had their own walk-in freezer unit,
where they stayed between takes.
Sources & further study
Books
Penguins Of The World, by Pauline Reilly (Oxford)
The Penguin Book: Birds In Suits, by Dr Mark Norman
(Black Dog Books)
The Field Guide To The Birds Of Australia, by Graham
Pizzey and Frank Knight (HarperCollins)
Websites
Taronga Zoo zootopia.com.au
Penguins antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/factfiles/animals/penguins
Movies
Mr Popper’s Penguins (Roadshow DVD)
March Of The Penguins (Warner DVD).
Happy Feet 2 opens in cinemas in December
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