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Interesting Facts Related To Penguins

25 16:34:30

Whenever we see penguins, it will be either floating in the water or sliding with their bellies. Naturally a question will come in our mind, whether penguin is a bird or fish. We have to describe penguin as a type of flightless bird that spend major part of its life in the sea. That is the reason why advertisers use penguins as their models in advertisements related to cooling equipments.

 

They look just like a man wearing a dark coat, as their back portion is black, while bellies are white. The top layer of a penguin's skin got thick layers of stiff feathers and this helps it to feel warm, even they are gliding through ice covered mountains. Just like peacocks, penguins also go through molting process, where they shed their feathers and grow new ones. They even got an oil secreting gland above their tail that helps it to make its outer thick coat more wind proof and water proof.

Recently a container ship Rena was grounded on a reef on Mount Maunganui beach in New Zealand and the oil spilled from it affected some 360 birds living there, including nearly 40 penguins. Wildlife rescuers did a great job there by cleaning and scrubbing those penguins and releasing it to its beach habitat after clearing the oil coat.

Some of the body features that help the bird to adapt to the aquatic lifestyle in the sea are its wings, feet and tail. The wings of penguins are just like airplane wings and are called flippers. They use flippers to propel through water and at that time penguin got an appearance of a bird flying in the water. Meanwhile, penguin's feet are web shaped and very short, so they can move in the water very quickly. The game they play in the ice is called tobogganing. They use its feet and flippers for this, which will help them to move swiftly and glide smoothly over the ice using their belly.

Based on their size, color, habits and habitats nearly seventeen penguin species are identified in the world. Among them, Emperor penguins are the largest and they will have a black cap, blue-grey neck, orange colored patch on the ear and yellow breasts. Meanwhile, the most common penguin in Antarctica is the king penguin and is regarded as the second largest one in that region. Some other penguin varieties are Galapagos penguin, Adelie penguin,Chinstrap penguin, Gentoo penguin, Rockhopper penguin and Macaroni penguin.

Most of these elfin creatures are found in the southern hemisphere. The Galapagos penguins can be found in the Galapagos Islands, while certain other species can be seen in the islands near New Zealand and Australia, the coast of South America and the icy waters near Antarctica.

Though movies based on penguins are very rare, 'Happy Feet' is a very nice movie to watch in a digital television powered by Dish TV. The story is based on a little penguin named Mumble, who got an amazing talent for tap dancing. All emperor penguins are supposed to have a heart song to express their true love in their country. But poor Mumble got a terrible voice and that become a problem for it to find its true love. As it doesn't have a heart song it became an unacceptable bird in his neighborhood. The movie got a good clapping from kids around the world.

Most penguins spend nearly 75% of their lives in the sea. They come to shore only during breeding and molting season. While in water they will feed on fish, cephalopods and krill, and they swallow their food as a whole. The total penguin population in the world is predicted to be somewhere about 100 million.