Adelie Penguin
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40 free Adelie Penguin trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Adélie penguins are the small, bold, black-and-white birds most people picture when they think of Antarctica. They nest in noisy colonies of many thousands, walk enormous distances across the ice, and will square up to animals several times their size. This quiz turns the best fun facts about Adélie penguins into questions: how they build and defend their nests, what they eat and what eats them, how their chicks grow up, how the species got its name, and how scientists keep count of millions of birds. A few questions cover the explorers who first studied them and the films that put them on screen. It is pitched for curious kids, classrooms and quiz hosts as much as for wildlife fans. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you finish with facts worth repeating.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Adélie penguins are notorious thieves at breeding time, sneaking what from neighbours' nests to build up their own?
Stones
Stones piled into a mound lift the eggs clear of meltwater, so every one is worth stealing. A study of 450 nests near Casey station found that pairs with more of them raised more chicks.
Q 02The Adélie penguin is named for Adèle, who was what to the explorer whose crew discovered the species?
His wife
His wife, Adèle, first gave her name to a stretch of Antarctic coast that Jules Dumont d'Urville sighted in 1840. The penguins collected there were then named after the place.
Q 03Scientists counting Adélie penguins from space scan satellite images of bare coast for red-brown stains left by what?
Droppings
Droppings, known as guano, stain a colony's ground so strongly that it shows up from orbit. A 2014 count using this trick found 3.79 million breeding pairs in 251 colonies.
Q 04Which powerful predator patrols the ice edge and is the main hunter of adult Adélie penguins in the water?
Leopard seal
Leopard seal ambushes near the ice edge are the main threat to adults, so Adélies swim in groups for safety. Polar bears, often pictured beside penguins, live only in the Arctic.
Q 05When snow lies deep enough, Adélie penguins save energy by doing what instead of walking upright?
Sliding on their bellies
Sliding on their bellies, known as tobogganing, lets them cover ground quickly for less effort than a waddle. Walking upright, they average only about 2.5 km/h across the ice.
Q 06Disneynature's 2019 film Penguins follows the first breeding season of an Adélie penguin given which everyday name?
Steve
Steve is a first-time dad whose hunt for a partner and a patch of ground drives the film, narrated by Ed Helms. His partner in the story is called Adeline.
Q 07Which animated film features five small, fast-talking Adélie penguins known as the Amigos, led by the confident Ramón?
Happy Feet
Happy Feet won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, with Robin Williams voicing Ramón. The Amigos cheer the hero's dancing when his own colony only mocks it.
Q 08Some Adélie penguins trek about 13,000 km a year, following the moving edge of the sea ice to stay near what?
Sunlight
Sunlight vanishes for months near the pole in winter, so the birds drift north with the ice edge to where day still breaks. The longest tracked round trip covered 17,600 km.
Q 09Only two penguins count as truly native to the Antarctic continent itself: the Adélie and which far larger species?
Emperor
Emperor colonies breed on sea ice in the depths of winter, while Adélies arrive for the brief summer. Kings and macaronis keep to milder shores farther north.
Q 10Who keeps the two eggs in an Adélie penguin nest warm during the month or so before they hatch?
Mother and father in turn
Mother and father in turn sit for shifts of up to two weeks while the other feeds at sea. The sitter eats nothing and will not leave even to relieve itself.
Q 11Which brown seabirds haunt Adélie penguin colonies, snatching unguarded eggs and small chicks?
Skuas
Skuas kill many chicks and take eggs, mostly those left unguarded or stuck at the edge of a group. Cape Crozier hosts a vast Adélie colony and about 1,000 pairs of the raiders.
Q 12What name do biologists give the tight groups of Adélie penguin chicks left alone while both parents hunt at sea?
Crèches
Crèches form once chicks are about three weeks old, which frees both parents to fetch food at the same time. Huddling together keeps the youngsters warm and safer from predators.
Q 13What job does an Adélie penguin's black back and white front do while the bird is swimming?
Camouflage
Q 21How does an Adélie penguin parent deliver a meal of krill to its chick after a long hunting trip at sea?
Regurgitated
Regurgitated directly into the chick's open beak, each meal weighs about 300 to 650 grams. A well-fed chick can put on around 80 grams a day.
Q 22How do Adélie penguins get from the sea onto an ice ledge that stands taller than they are?
By leaping straight out
By leaping straight out, as high as 3 metres into the air, they land on the ice in one move. Underwater they usually cruise at about 8 km/h.
Q 23If both birds survive the winter, an Adélie penguin returning to its old nest usually pairs up again with whom?
Camouflage is the point: seen from below, a white front blends with the bright surface, and from above a black back vanishes into dark water. The pattern is called countershading.
Q 14Because Adélie penguins need both sea ice and bare ground, scientists treat their numbers as an early warning of what?
Climate change
Climate change shows up fast in their colonies: on the warming Antarctic Peninsula numbers have fallen since the 1980s, while colonies in colder East Antarctica have grown.
Q 15Jules Dumont d'Urville, whose expedition collected the first Adélie penguins around 1840, was sailing for which country?
France
France still claims the slice of Antarctica he named Adélie Land and runs a research station there that bears his name. Adélies breed on the rocks around the base every summer.
Q 16Unusually long, stiff feathers on which body part earned Adélie penguins and their closest relatives a shared nickname?
The tail
The tail feathers sweep the ground as the bird walks, which is why Adélies and their closest relatives are known as brush-tailed penguins.
Q 17Adélie penguins fire their poo clear of the nest; a study of the pressure penguins need for this won which spoof award?
Ig Nobel Prize
Ig Nobel Prize judges gave the physics paper their 2005 award for fluid dynamics. A bird sitting on eggs will not leave the nest even for this, so it aims outward instead.
Q 18In 2018 scientists revealed a previously unknown colony of 1.5 million Adélie penguins on which remote island group?
Danger Islands
Danger Islands earned the name in 1842, when floating ice hid them until a ship was almost upon them. The penguin count there was made with drones adapted to the cold.
Q 19The world's southernmost Adélie penguin colony sits at Cape Royds, beside a hut built in 1908 by which explorer?
Ernest Shackleton
Ernest Shackleton and his party lived in the hut through the winter of 1908, and it is still preserved. The cape is protected partly for its long record of penguin counts.
Q 20Which marking, missing in birds under a year old, sets an adult Adélie penguin apart from every other penguin?
White eye rings
White eye rings are the adult's trademark, circling a dark iris on an otherwise all-black head. The beak looks short and stubby because feathers hide most of it.
The same mate
The same mate is found again by voice: each pair recognises the other's call and the nest site they shared.
Q 24What covers an Adélie penguin's tongue, helping the toothless bird grip slippery krill before swallowing it whole?
Tiny spines
Tiny spines on the tongue, backed by powerful jaws, stop prey slipping back out. Penguins catch food in the bill and swallow it whole while still swimming.
Q 25Adélie penguins raise their young in the Antarctic summer, so in which month do most of their chicks hatch?
December
December is when most chicks hatch: the eggs are laid in November and take about five weeks. By February the young birds are ready to go to sea.
Q 26Which orange-billed penguin with a white band over its head belongs to the same genus as the Adélie?
Gentoo
Gentoo penguins are close cousins of the Adélie but cope less well with ice. As the Antarctic Peninsula warms, they are spreading south while Adélies there retreat.
Q 27What ran aground in Commonwealth Bay, forcing Cape Denison's Adélie penguins to walk about 65 km to reach the sea?
An iceberg
An iceberg named B09B stranded there, and sea ice built up between it and the shore. Far fewer birds returned to breed, though Adélies elsewhere in Antarctica were unaffected.
Q 28Adélie penguins were found to deliberately hunt which soft-bodied animals, once thought swallowed only by accident?
Jellyfish
Jellyfish turned out to be a snack the birds seek out, not a mistake. Little, yellow-eyed and Magellanic penguins showed the same taste for them.
Q 29Each spring, which Adélie penguins reach the breeding colony first to reclaim and defend last year's nest site?
The males
The males arrive first and court with a salute, standing at full height with neck arched and beak thrusting. The same display tells rivals the territory is taken.
Q 30George Murray Levick spent a whole summer among Adélie penguins as zoologist on which explorer's final expedition?
Robert Falcon Scott
Robert Falcon Scott took Levick south on the Terra Nova, and Levick's summer at Cape Adare in 1911–12 became the book Antarctic Penguins. He then survived a winter stranded in a cramped ice cave.