Birds Posters
Penguins
Penguins are a group of aquatic, flightless birds living almost exclusively in the southern hemisphere, especially in Antarctica.
Highly adapted for life in the water, penguins have countershaded dark and white plumage, and their wings have become flippers.
Most penguins feed on krill, fish, squid, and other forms of sealife caught while swimming underwater. They spend about half of their lives on land and half in the oceans.
Although all penguin species are native to the southern hemisphere, they are not found only in cold climates, such as Antarctica.
In fact, only a few species of penguin live so far south. Several species are found in the temperate zone, and one species, the Galapagos Penguin, lives near the equator.
As the smallest penguin in the world, little penguin stands at an average height of 30 cm and has a weight of 1.1 to 1.2 kg.
It has a black bill with an average length of 35 mm and eyes ranging from silver to blue, grey, and hazel.
Its chin and throat are white along with the underside of its flippers and torso.
The top of the head, neck and dorsal side of its flippers and torso are an indigo-blue.
Little penguins live an average of 6 years. However a banded little penguin has been recaptured the age of 25 years and 8 months old.
King penguins spend a lot of time in the ocean feeding, but their primary habitats are sparsely vegetated areas of islands in the southern oceans and sub-Antarctic.
King penguins are the second largest of all penguin species. Females are noted to be slightly smaller than males. However, no specific female measurements have been recorded.
Their documented height ranges from 85 to 95 cm and weight is between 9.3 and 17.3 kg. Average adult weight has been found to be 11.8 kg.
Galapagos penguins occupy coastal areas and offshore waters where the cold Cromwell Current brings food and other population-sustaining necessities into the vicinity.
These birds rest on sandy shores and rocky beaches and nest on areas of sheltered coast.
Galapagos penguins are fairly small penguins, averaging only 53 cm in height and ranging in weight from 1.7 to 2.6 kg.
Sexual dimorphism exists, in that males are slightly larger than females. Galapagos penguins are the smallest members of the Spheniscus or "banded" penguins.
Members of this species are mainly black in color with white accenting colors on various locations of the body and a large white frontal area.
Gentoo penguins typically are found along the shoreline. This allows the penguins to be able to quickly access food while remaining close to their nest.
They prefer elevations close to 115 meters above sea level along the shore because the snow in these areas tends to melt first.
Like all penguin species, the ventral side of gentoo penguins is white while the dorsal side is black. This color pattern is known as countershading.
This adaptation is useful while swimming underwater; the lightly colored ventral side helps penguins blend in with the sky for predators or prey that are looking up.
African penguins live in large colonies on rocky coastlines of southwest Africa.
They can swim up to 20 kph and can travel 30 to 70 km during each trip.
Adults stand around 45 cm tall and weigh an average of 3.1 kg. African penguins have black plumage on the back and white feathers with black markings on the chest and belly.
The white and black plumage serves as camouflage to predators, with the white appearing to aquatic predators from below and the black appearing to aerial predators from above.