40 Fun Facts About King Penguin

Nils Olav, a king penguin promoted to major general in 2023, is the mascot of which country's King's Guard?

Norway's King's Guard adopted its first Nils Olav in 1972, and the name has passed down through three penguins. Guinness World Records lists the holder as the highest-ranking penguin.

Lala, a pet king penguin filmed walking to a fish market wearing a backpack, lived in which country?

Japan was home to Lala, who had been caught by accident by a fisherman, nursed back to health and then adopted by the man's family as a pet.

Which 1992 Tim Burton film gave Danny DeVito's villain an army that included real king penguins?

Batman Returns mixed live king and African penguins with puppets, performers in suits and computer effects to build the villain's waddling army.

Pesto, a king penguin chick who became an internet star in 2024 for his enormous size, hatched in which city?

Melbourne's Sea Life aquarium saw visits jump by 30% thanks to Pesto, who as a fluffy chick weighed more than his two foster parents put together.

The king penguin is the second-largest penguin species; which close relative is the only one that is bigger?

Emperor penguin is the answer. European explorers who first met kings took them for the largest penguin alive, and the two species were only told apart in 1844.

King penguins build no nest; where does a parent keep the single egg during nearly two months of incubation?

On its feet, tucked under a warm fold of belly skin, is where the egg rides. The newly hatched chick stays there too for its first few weeks.

Which desert city keeps king penguins inside an indoor ski resort attached to one of its shopping malls?

Dubai's indoor ski slope, kept at around freezing inside the Mall of the Emirates, is among the odder homes for king penguins. Most captive birds live in zoos and aquariums.

A male king penguin courts a mate by stretching to full height and giving a call named after which instrument?

Trumpet is the instrument: a male's trumpeting call advertises him to females, and an interested one joins him in bowing, strutting and stretching.

Which British zoo, famed for its penguin parade, hatched the first captive-bred penguin, a king, in 1919?

Edinburgh Zoo hatched the chick a few years after three king penguins arrived on a whaling expedition's ship. Its famous parade began by accident, when several birds escaped their enclosure.

Which small glowing fish of the deep ocean do king penguins eat more than any other prey?

Lanternfish are the staple. They rise towards the surface after dark and sink again by daybreak, and king penguins dive far shallower at night than by day.

What name is given to the nursery group where king penguin chicks wait while the adults fish at sea?

Crèche is the term, the same one used for a daycare for human toddlers. A handful of grown birds watch over the chicks while the rest are away feeding.

Which honour, approved by his regiment's king, did the mascot king penguin Nils Olav receive at a 2008 parade?

A knighthood made him Sir Nils, the first penguin so honoured in his adopted army. Some 130 guardsmen paraded at his zoo as the royal citation was read out.

Which species of seal, a solitary hunter of the Southern Ocean, takes adult king penguins and fledglings at sea?

Leopard seals take adults and newly fledged birds in the water. On land the danger comes from above, as seabirds snatch eggs and chicks.

What colour are the bold ear patches on an adult king penguin, which narrow to a strip toward the chest?

Orange patches curve from the ears down to the upper chest of every adult. Chicks have none: they wear thick brown down until their first moult.

How does a king penguin parent returning from a fishing trip deliver the catch to its waiting chick?

Regurgitates it is the unglamorous answer: the adult eats fish at sea, digests it slightly and brings it back up into the chick's mouth.

Experiments with feathers and droppings showed king penguins can pick up colony cues using which sense?

Smell works for king penguins: they reacted to airborne odours from the feathers and droppings of their own kind, though what they use the skill for is still unclear.

Unlike some penguins, whose males incubate alone, who keeps a king penguin's egg warm for nearly two months?

Both parents take turns, in shifts of 6 to 18 days, while the other feeds at sea. The male takes the first shift.

A king penguin's single egg starts white and turns pale green; which fruit is its shape compared to?

Pear is the shape, known to scientists as pyriform. The shell is soft when laid, then hardens and darkens to its greenish colour.

To breathe without slowing down, king penguins use a leaping swimming style named after which marine mammal?

Porpoise gives its name to porpoising, which lets a penguin snatch a breath without breaking its pace. A king usually cruises at 6.5 to 10 kilometres an hour.

What winter-sport name describes a king penguin sliding along on its belly, pushed by feet and flippers?

Tobogganing is the word for the belly slide, driven by the feet and wing-like flippers. The rest of the time a king penguin gets about with a wobbling walk.

With well over a million breeding pairs, the king penguin sits in which category of the IUCN Red List?

Least Concern is the listing, a turnaround for a bird once slaughtered for its oil. The modern worry is warming seas pushing its feeding grounds farther from its colonies.

Macquarie Island, where king penguins breed in their tens of thousands, is governed as part of which Australian state?

Tasmania has governed Macquarie Island since 1880, and in the early 1900s leased it to a businessman whose oil industry was built on harvesting penguins.

St Andrews Bay, home to over 150,000 king penguin pairs, lies on which island Ernest Shackleton crossed on foot?

South Georgia holds the vast colony, on an island whose king penguins were nearly wiped out by hunters after their oil. Numbers recovered once the killing stopped.

The Crozet and Kerguelen islands, home to the biggest king penguin populations, belong to which European country?

France administers both groups as part of its Southern and Antarctic Lands, and every king penguin colony there lies inside a national nature reserve.

Which country's King Penguin Park sits on Tierra del Fuego beside a stretch of water called Useless Bay?

Chile hosts the park on Inútil Bay, which a British captain named in 1827 because it offered neither anchorage nor shelter. King penguins are regularly seen on its eastern shore.

What happened between the 1980s and 2017 to the world's largest king penguin colony, on Île aux Cochons?

It shrank by almost 90%, from about half a million breeding pairs to around 60,000, and nobody has pinned down why. Climate, disease and food shortage are all suspects.

King penguins stay faithful to one mate for a whole season; what do most of them do the following year?

Find a new partner is the usual pattern: fewer than 30% of couples get back together. The unusually long breeding cycle probably has a lot to do with it.

King penguin chicks are almost fully grown by April; what happens to them over the winter months that follow?

They fast and slim down, sometimes going months between meals while the adults feed far out at sea. They fatten up again in spring and fledge by early summer.

King penguin colonies look evenly spaced because each breeding bird keeps its neighbours how far away?

Pecking distance is the rule: with no nest to defend, each bird guards the small patch it can reach with its bill, and positions stay stable for weeks.

A king penguin chick picking out a parent's call in a noisy colony shows an effect named after which gathering?

Cocktail party is the borrowed name. With no nest to act as a meeting point, a chick learns the calls that matter in its first five weeks and listens for the lower of two tones.

The coloured stripe on a king penguin's lower bill reflects which kind of light that human eyes cannot see?

Ultraviolet reflection from the bill may signal health or maturity, and pairs that breed early in the season show more of it. Chicks lack it entirely.

The second half of Aptenodytes, the king penguin's genus name, is an Ancient Greek word meaning what?

Diver is the meaning: the full name describes a diver without wings, fair enough for a bird that has been recorded more than 300 metres down.

Which scavenging seabird takes many king penguin chicks of all sizes and will even kill sick adults?

Giant petrel is the culprit, a bird aggressive enough to batter or drown its victims. Unlike its petrel relatives, it has legs strong enough to stride about on land.

Which organ, sitting where a bird's airways branch, lets a king penguin call in two voices at once?

Syrinx is the organ, built in two parts so that each call carries two frequencies. Adults repeat the call over and over to find a chick amid the din.

The mascot king penguin Nils Olav holds a baron's title named after which remote island in the South Atlantic?

Bouvet Island, often described as the most remote island in the world, gives the bird his barony. The title sits alongside his army rank and his role as colonel-in-chief.

Most king penguin hunting dives have a flat-bottomed profile said to resemble which letters of the alphabet?

U or W is how researchers describe them: the bird drops to a chosen depth and hunts along it, spending about half the dive there, before heading back up.

Which toothed whale, hunting in pods, is among the predators that take king penguins at sea?

Orca is the answer: together with one species of seal, it is the main danger an adult king penguin faces in the water. On land, eggs and chicks are raided from the air.

Besides fish and krill, king penguins eat which soft-bodied animals, taking more of them during winter?

Squid make up a bigger share of the menu over winter, when fish drop from roughly 80% of the diet to only around 30%.

Which American scavenger joins caracaras in eating king penguin eggs and chicks on the Falkland Islands?

Turkey vultures and caracaras work the Falklands colonies, an unusual pairing: on most other breeding grounds the egg thieves are skuas and sheathbills.

Hunters on subantarctic islands turned to king penguins for oil after wiping out most of which animals?

Fur seals came first: once the sealing industry had all but emptied the beaches, crews exploited the penguins instead, and many colonies were nearly wiped out.