One of the most charismatic beings that we will meet within the animal world is the penguin.
Practically everyone adores this bird, for its beauty, its grace when walking, and for other characteristics that make it unique, but possibly few know all the important information regarding these animals.
That is why we have prepared this article for you so that you know the most basic data and even the odd secret so that you know more about penguins.
Penguin characteristics
To begin with, penguins are a species belonging to the Spheniscidae family which are considered flightless seabirds.
Only the coldest areas of the Southern Hemisphere are found.
The discovery of these birds was at the hands of the Europeans who stepped on Vasco de Gama for the first time when they made one of the expeditions looking for and analyzing this place.
The name they searched for this species was that of booby birds or they have also been cited as child birds.
These names come from the gait that these animals have, which resembles that of small children who are learning to walk and still have trouble holding their balance while they walk.
Later, it was the British who, upon meeting them, gave them the name of penguins, because of their whiteheads.
For a moment it was thought that auks, very similar birds that share certain similarities with penguins, which we can see in the Northern Hemisphere, came from the same family, but over time this belief was distancing themselves, being two different species and that they are not related to each other.
Although many species of birds cannot fly, penguins are the only ones that are perfectly adapted to diving.
They do this thanks to the propulsion of their wings, which have been transformed for them into fins with very strong bones and with which it is easier for them to move underwater.
Their bones are much denser than those of any other bird, so they are more resistant to blows or breakage, this being also an important point in diving, since being heavier, they lose buoyancy helping them to dive better.
If we talk about their legs, they are further behind their body, at an angle that makes it more difficult for them to walk correctly, but when they are swimming or diving it serves as two rudders that guide and direct the animal to the place they want quickly.
These animals, surprising as it may seem, move better in water than on land, registering specimens that are capable of reaching 60 km / h, although normally they go at about 10 km / h.
These animals are capable of lasting many minutes underwater, being the emperor penguin the one that has the record of immersion: an amazing 18 minutes.
To know the secret of why they can last so long, it is not found in the oxygen reserve from their lungs, but the muscles that they have inside their wings store enormous amounts of myoglobin, which makes them able to resist these times immersed in Water.
For penguins to be able to inhabit the coldest regions of the Southern Hemisphere, they have evolved until they can easily retain heat within their body.
This is because they have a large layer of fat under the skin and on these three layers of resistant and waterproof plumage.
The effectiveness of this structure to retain heat causes species that live in more temperate zones to have overheating problems, having to create other adaptations to survive, such as the elimination of certain layers of plumage, or longer fins that act as a thermoregulator.
Penguins, like their relatives the seabirds, have a gland that enables them to effectively eliminate the salt they ingest in each incursion into the sea, so they do not need to drink freshwater, making it drinkable that they take from the sea.
Penguins' diet is mainly focused on fish, although there are species that only eat plankton.
Whether one species or another, all species eat a large amount of plankton in their daily diet, whether they eat fish or not.
Where penguins live
These birds only inhabit the Southern Hemisphere, while their presence in the Northern Hemisphere is not related to the natural environment but captivity.
Penguin populations are found in coastal waters of the Antarctic continent, in New Zealand, Australia, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, Chile, and the Falkland Islands. However, they also live in more tropical areas such as the Galapagos Islands, South Africa, and South America, with the Humboldt Current.
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