50 Fun Facts About Emperor Penguin

How does a male emperor penguin feed himself during the two months he spends incubating an egg on his feet?

He fasts completely: counting the trek and courtship, a father goes about 120 days without food and can lose more than a third of his body weight before his mate returns.

Male emperor penguins feed hatchlings a milk-like secretion, a trick shared only with pigeons and which birds?

Flamingos and pigeons are the only other birds that make crop milk. A father can produce it for just a few days, which keeps the chick alive until its mother gets back with fish.

An emperor penguin that swam to New Zealand in 2011 fell ill after eating what, apparently mistaking it for snow?

Sand, about 3 kg of it, had to be removed in several operations. Named after an animated film, the bird was nursed at a zoo for ten weeks and then released at sea with a tracker.

With no nest to return to, how does a female emperor penguin find her mate among hundreds of similar males?

By his call alone: with no fixed nests to meet at, emperors rely purely on voice, and their calls vary more from bird to bird than those of any other penguin.

What provides 80 to 90 percent of an emperor penguin's insulation against the bitter Antarctic cold?

Dense feathers do most of the work, not fat: muscles hold them erect on land to trap a layer of warm air, then flatten them in the water to seal the skin.

What is the name for the way emperor penguins slide over the ice on their bellies?

Tobogganing alternates with a wobbling walk on the way to the breeding colony, a trek of 50 to 120 km across the ice from the open sea.

Scientists have found new emperor penguin colonies in satellite images by spotting what on the white ice?

Droppings stains, or guano, show up from space as dark smears. A British Antarctic Survey search of this kind raised the number of known breeding sites from 50 to 61 in 2020.

In 2024 an emperor penguin named Gus swam about 3,500 km to become the first recorded in which country?

Australia met its first emperor when surfers watched Gus waddle up a beach in the southwest. His carer named him after the Roman emperor Augustus, and he went back to sea after 20 days.

Which actor narrated the English release of March of the Penguins, the 2005 film about emperor penguins?

Morgan Freeman told the story as a single outside narrator. The French original instead had actors speak as the penguins themselves, in the first person.

Emperor penguins are often said to mate for life, but whom do most actually pair with each breeding season?

A new partner is the norm: only about 15% reunite with last year's mate, because the breeding window is too short to wait for a late arrival. Pairs do stay faithful within a season.

The emperor penguin is the largest living penguin; which close relative in its genus ranks second?

King penguins look much like smaller emperors but lead an easier life, breeding on subantarctic islands rather than on the frozen sea around Antarctica itself.

Besides orcas, which Antarctic seal preys on healthy adult emperor penguins once they enter the water?

Leopard seals catch adults and fledglings soon after they enter the water. Out on the ice a healthy adult has little to fear, because the seabirds that raid colonies go after chicks.

Emperor penguins almost always breed on which surface, now shrinking as the climate warms?

Sea ice is their nursery, so losing it can wipe out a whole breeding season. A 2023 study warned that more than 90% of colonies could face near-extinction as it disappears.

Roughly how deep did a tracked emperor penguin from Antarctica's Auster rookery dive while hunting in 1994?

About 560 metres: the bird reached 564 m in a dive that lasted almost 22 minutes. Other tracked dives suggest emperors sometimes hunt right down at the seabed.

In the 2006 animated film Happy Feet, the emperor penguin Mumble cannot sing but has which other talent?

Tap dancing sets Mumble apart in a colony where every bird woos a mate with its own song. His steps were recorded from the dancer Savion Glover.

What feature of an emperor penguin's bones helps the bird withstand crushing pressure on deep dives?

They are solid rather than air-filled, which removes the risk of pressure injury at depths where the squeeze can be 40 times what it is at the surface.

Emperor penguins search for fish and krill in the open water and ice cracks of which ocean?

Southern Ocean waters ring Antarctica, and parents may travel up to 500 km from the colony to gather enough food for a single chick.

Besides fish and krill, which soft-bodied sea animals are a regular part of the emperor penguin's diet?

Squid, including the glacial squid, are regular prey. A returning mother carries her catch in her stomach and regurgitates it for the chick.

Why do emperor penguins packed into a winter huddle keep slowly shuffling around its outer edge?

To take turns inside is the point: birds on the windward edge shuffle round to the sheltered side, so the huddle churns slowly and nobody is left out in the cold for long.

Explorers who collected emperor penguin eggs in 1911 hoped the embryos would link birds to which animals?

Reptiles were the suspected ancestors, so three men trekked through weeks of polar darkness for the eggs. One of them titled his memoir The Worst Journey in the World.

The emperor penguin's species name, forsteri, honours a naturalist who sailed with which sea captain?

James Cook took Johann Reinhold Forster south in the 1770s. Forster may even have been the first person to see an emperor, though he took it for a smaller relative.

What lines an emperor penguin's tongue to stop slippery prey from escaping once it is caught?

Backward barbs work like a ratchet: prey can slide toward the throat but not back out. Emperors add speed to that grip, driving themselves along on both the up and down strokes.

Emperor penguin chicks left alone while both parents fish huddle in a tight group known by which name?

A crèche forms about seven weeks after hatching and can pack in several thousand chicks, whose shared warmth is essential once no parent is there to shelter them.

Emperor penguin chicks wear a black-and-white head mask and fluffy down of which colour on the body?

Silver-grey down covers the body, but it is thin at first, so a hatchling spends its early weeks perched on a parent's feet, tucked under a warm fold of belly.

What colour are the bold markings on each side of an adult emperor penguin's head?

Bright yellow ear markings shade into a paler wash on the upper breast. Juveniles have white ones instead, which is one way to pick out a young bird.

The emperor penguin's genus name, Aptenodytes, comes from ancient Greek words with which meaning?

Wingless diver, also read as flightless diver, is the sense of the Greek a-ptēno-dytēs. It suits a bird whose stiff, flat flippers are useless in the air but drive it far underwater.

A male emperor penguin warms his egg against a bare strip of belly skin known by what name?

Brood patch skin presses on the egg from above while it rests on his feet under a loose fold of belly. An egg dropped on the ice freezes within a minute or two.

What happens to an emperor penguin's heart rate during a long, deep dive beneath the ice?

It drops sharply, to as few as 15 to 20 beats a minute, while non-essential organs shut down, stretching one breath of oxygen across a much longer hunt.

A tight huddle of emperor penguins sheltering from the wind is also known as which formation?

The turtle formation can hold anything from ten birds to several hundred, each leaning forward on a neighbour, with the young ones usually tucked into the calmer centre.

What seasonal cue appears to trigger emperor penguins to set off for their breeding colonies each year?

Shortening days seem to be the signal: zoos have coaxed captive emperors into breeding with artificial lights that mimic the Antarctic's shrinking daylight.

Just before mating, what gesture do an emperor penguin and its chosen mate make to each other in turn?

A deep bow, bill pointed almost to the ground, is answered in kind by the mate. Earlier in courtship the pair stand face to face, mirroring each other's stretched necks for minutes.

Which seabird is the main land predator of emperor penguin chicks, causing over a third of deaths in some colonies?

Giant petrels kill many chicks and scavenge dead birds as well. Skuas mostly arrive too late in the season, when the live chicks are already too big to tackle.

Only a few living bird species are heavier than the emperor penguin; they all belong to which group?

Ratites such as ostriches and cassowaries are the only birds that outweigh it. A big emperor can reach about 45 kg, roughly half the weight of a man.

Emperor penguins were first bred successfully in captivity at which American visitor attraction?

SeaWorld San Diego has hatched more than 20 chicks since 1980. Earlier zoos struggled for decades, learning by trial and error how to keep a bird built for polar cold.

In which BBC series did a film crew dig a slope to free emperor penguins stuck in a steep trench?

Dynasties followed one colony at Atka Bay through a whole winter. The crew's rescue with shovels was shown in the behind-the-scenes segment that closes each episode.

What usually becomes of an emperor penguin pair whose egg is dropped and lost during the handover?

They part and leave, both walking back to the sea with the pair bond over. Each returns to the colony the following year to try again.

In which Antarctic season do young emperor penguins and their parents finally make the trek back to the sea?

Summer, in December and January, is when they leave, and by then the walk is far shorter than the trek inland was. They spend the rest of the season feeding in open water.

Carers nursing Gus, a lost and underweight emperor penguin, in 2024 put which object in his pen for company?

A mirror stood in for a colony, because emperors are highly social birds. Gus put on more than 3 kg during 20 days of care before he was released from a boat.

After weeks of incubation, male emperor penguins head for areas of permanent open water known by which name?

Polynyas stay ice-free all year but can lie about 100 km from the colony, a long walk for a father who has just lost a large share of his body weight.

Which bay held a huge emperor penguin colony that suffered three straight years of breeding failure after 2015?

Halley Bay, then the world's second-largest colony, lost thousands of chicks to strong winds and a record shortage of ice. Many adults moved to a neighbouring colony 55 km south.

Explorers on a 1911 midwinter trek to collect emperor penguin eggs were heading for which Antarctic cape?

Crozier, at the eastern tip of Ross Island, hosts one of the two southernmost emperor colonies. The three men were away for five weeks and came back barely alive.

The only confirmed emperor penguin twins hatched in 2017 at an ocean park in which country?

China's Sun Asia Ocean World in Dalian hatched the pair, a true rarity because a female emperor normally lays just one egg a year.

What sound do hungry emperor penguin chicks use to beg their parents for a meal of regurgitated fish?

A whistle that slides up and down in pitch is the chick's begging signal. The free meals end in November, when the young start moulting into juvenile plumage.

What do female emperor penguins that have lost their own young sometimes attempt in a crowded colony?

Stealing a chick rarely ends well: the mother and her neighbours fight back, and a kidnapper cannot feed the youngster alone, so she soon abandons it.

Why can an emperor penguin chick take two or three days to break its way out of the egg?

The shell is thick, nearly 16% of the egg's weight, which guards against cracks during the risky handover between parents but means a long struggle at hatching.

More than 30 countries, including Britain and Chile, have depicted the emperor penguin on which items?

Postage stamps from Britain and Chile have shown the bird several times each, and Belgium put it on a 10-franc issue in 1962 as part of an Antarctic expedition series.

Zeke 'Big Z' Topanga, an emperor penguin, is a much-admired character in which 2007 animated film?

Surf's Up makes Big Z a surfing hero, though real emperors keep to far colder water: the species is found only around Antarctica.

A sick emperor penguin found on a New Zealand beach in 2011 was treated for ten weeks at which city's zoo?

Wellington Zoo gave the bird only a 50 per cent chance at first. His recovery was followed by more than 600 media outlets around the world.

What colour is the pear-shaped egg that a female emperor penguin lays at the start of the Antarctic winter?

Greenish-white and a little under half a kilogram, the egg goes straight to the father, who balances it on his feet while the mother heads to sea to feed.

The northernmost breeding colony of emperor penguins lies on which island near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula?

Snow Hill Island lies far enough north that its incubating males escape the unbroken winter darkness that colonies farther south sit through.