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The penguin is a flightless bird that lives in the Antarctic area that lies to the south of the equator. The sub zero temperatures are perfectly suited for this aquatic bird. The adaptation has converted their wings to flippers that help it a great deal while swimming in the cold waters of the Antarctic. They lead an amphibious life with half their lives spend on land and the other half spent underwater. Their white plumage helps them blend into the background of ice and snow. They feed on the krill, fish and squid and other marine life they catch while underwater. Though they live in the Antarctic region there are a few species that live near the equator.

The largest living species is the Emperor Penguin and as the name suggests they are a good 1.1 m tall and weigh over 35 kg. The smallest of the species is the Fairy Penguin which is hardly 40 cm tall and weighs around a kilo. It is believed that there were a prehistoric species that were enormous and grew as tall as an average human with a proportionate weight to match.

No one really knows wherefrom the word Penguin was actually derived and from which language. ...
... Some attribute it to a Welsh origin where ‘pen’ means head and ‘gwyn’ that means white, though the Penguin’s head is black in color. Some of the types of penguins are the King, Emperor the great penguins, Adelie, Chinstrap and Gentoo the brush tailed penguins, the little blue and the white-flippered the little penguins and a few others.

Penguins have adapted themselves remarkably to underwater life. Their wings have become flippers as they swim more and never ever fly. However underwater the penguins can move with great agility and is almost aerodynamic to view. Within the smooth outer layer of feathers, a layer of air is trapped and held that helps the penguins to maintain the buoyancy in water and serves as an effective insulation from the biting cold waters. On land the wings and the tail serve to help them stand upright and navigate. They move at average speeds of 6 to 12 km/h. The young ones are content searching for food in shallow waters, while the adults venture deeper. It has been recorded that the deepest dive of an Emperor penguin was to an amazing dept of 565 m for over 20 minutes.

On land, the penguins move around by either sliding on their bellies or waddling around on their feet. They can jump with both feet together and move at rapid speeds. They have a thick layer of feathers that serve as insulation that helps keep them warm in the cold waters. They also have the ability to control the blood flow to the extremities and prevent the cold from seeping into the body. During extremely cold periods they huddle together to share the warmth and keep rotating positions so that each one in the group gets a chance to be in the middle for sometime where the warmth is trapped. They are able to survive by drinking salt water as they are equipped with supraorbital glands that help filter sodium chloride from the blood. The excess salt is excreted as a concentrated fluid through the nasal passages.

The penguins live and breed in large colonies varying in numbers from a hundred pairs to several thousand pairs. The level of social interaction is very high and they have their own means of communicating using various sounds and actions. They do not change partners in a breeding season and most females lay 2 eggs at a time. The penguins share the incubation duties till the eggs are hatched. Due to the excess cold, the incubation needs to be continued without a break. More such interesting information can be view on programs that are aired by popular service providers like ATT Uverse.

Randy Collins is a freelance author who is fond of traveling and likes visiting quaint tourist destinations and study the local culture and habits. He likes to book his vacation tours using his home phone to call his travel agent.ATT Home Phone