Penguins are funny and clumsy on land, but as soon as they get into the water they become very agile and graceful. If you want to know if penguins can fly, the answer is yes they are flying birds, but they are flying only in water.
1. Some extinct penguin species that lived 37 to 40 million years ago were huge, such as the penguin Palaeeudyptes klekowskii was over two meters tall and weighed more than 170 kilograms.
2. Penguins are mostly monogamous animals and meaning they partner with one mate for life, despite the fact that most of their time they spend apart from each other.
3. Penguins are able to jump out of the water to a height of more than one and a half meters.
4. Penguins stay warm in the freezing cold waters thanks to a thick layer of fat and feathers that are closely adjacent to each other. Weirdly, most penguin species have a body temperature of 38 degrees Celsius, but they can survive temperatures well below – 50 degrees Celsius.
5. The emperor penguin can dive to a depth of more than half a kilometer and hold its breath for almost half an hour.
6. Penguin colonies are sometimes so huge that they can be seen from space.
7. Sir Nils was the first penguin who was knighted with the approval of King Harald V of Norway in 2008. This is because the penguin is the mascot of his guard.
8. Female emperor penguins that have lost their own brood, usually trying to steal a chick from another penguin family.
9. The emperor penguin is the largest penguin in the world, whose height reaches 120 cm, and the smallest is a little blue penguin. His average height is only 33 cm.
10. Most penguins swim underwater at around four to 9 kilometers per hour, but the fastest Gentoo penguin can reach top speeds of 35 kilometers per hour.
11. Penguin’s feet do not freeze, because certain arteries in the penguin leg can adjust blood flow in response to foot temperature, feeding the foot just enough blood to keep it a few degrees above freezing.
12. There are 17 species of penguins, each slightly different. Macaroni penguins are the most abundant species in the world – with almost 24 million individuals.
