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Order Family Aquatic Flightless Birds Southern Hemisphere Antarctica Countershaded Flippers Krill Fish Squid Sealife

Penguins are a group of flightless aquatic birds that live in the Southern Hemisphere, especially Antarctica. They have black and white feathers and flippers adapted for swimming. Most penguins feed on krill, fish and squid underwater. They spend half their time on land and half in the oceans. While some penguin species live in Antarctica, others can be found in more temperate climates, and one species lives near the equator. Emperor penguins are the largest, over 3 feet tall and 75 pounds, while Little Blue Penguins are the smallest at under 2 pounds. Larger penguins tend to live in colder areas while smaller species inhabit warmer climates. Prehistoric giant penguin species could reach

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25 views

Order Family Aquatic Flightless Birds Southern Hemisphere Antarctica Countershaded Flippers Krill Fish Squid Sealife

Penguins are a group of flightless aquatic birds that live in the Southern Hemisphere, especially Antarctica. They have black and white feathers and flippers adapted for swimming. Most penguins feed on krill, fish and squid underwater. They spend half their time on land and half in the oceans. While some penguin species live in Antarctica, others can be found in more temperate climates, and one species lives near the equator. Emperor penguins are the largest, over 3 feet tall and 75 pounds, while Little Blue Penguins are the smallest at under 2 pounds. Larger penguins tend to live in colder areas while smaller species inhabit warmer climates. Prehistoric giant penguin species could reach

Uploaded by

GomathiRachakonda
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Penguins (order Sphenisciformes, family Spheniscidae) are a group of aquatic, flightless birds living almost exclusively in the Southern

Hemisphere, especially in Antarctica. Highly adapted for life in the water, penguins have countershaded dark and white plumage, and their wings have evolved intoflippers. Most penguins feed on krill, fish, squid and other forms of sealife caught while swimming underwater. They spend about half of their lives on land and half in the oceans. Although all penguin species are native to the Southern Hemisphere, they are not found only in cold climates, such as Antarctica. In fact, only a few species of penguin live so far south. Several species are found in the temperate zone, and one species, the Galpagos Penguin, lives near the equator. The largest living species is the Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri): on average adults are about 1.1 m (3 ft 7 in) tall and weigh 35 kg (75 lb) or more. The smallest penguin species is the Little Blue Penguin (Eudyptula minor), also known as the Fairy Penguin, which stands around 40 cm tall (16 in) and weighs 1 kg (2.2 lb). Among extant penguins, larger penguins inhabit colder regions, while smaller penguins are generally found in temperate or even tropical climates (see also Bergmann's Rule). Some prehistoric species attained enormous sizes, becoming as tall or as heavy as an adult human. These were not restricted to Antarctic regions; on the contrary, subantarctic regions harboured high diversity, and at least one giant penguin occurred in a region not quite 2,000 km south of the equator 35 mya, in a climate decidedly warmer than today.

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