penguin

Penguins (order Sphenisciformes, family Spheniscidae) 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 evolved into 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.

For more information about penguin check the Wikipedia article here

ZME Science posts about penguin

Why penguins can’t fly: you can’t be good at two things at once

Tue, May 21, 2013

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Penguins are remarkable animals that have always garnered attention. For one they’re extremely cute (always an advantage in a world where humans are at the absolute top of the food chain), then they’re extremely fascinating to study. If you’re to closely look at the wings of a penguin, intuition would immediately tell you that these [...]

Penguins are egotistical, mathematical simulation shows

Wed, Nov 21, 2012

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There’s a rather common image that might pop inside someone’s head when thinking of penguins – an entire flock of such animals, standing very close together, keeping themselves warm as they confront extreme sub-zero antarctic temperatures. Don’t be fooled, though. According to the results of a mathematical simulation that modeled penguin huddling, the penguins stick [...]

Climate change causes penguin colonies to decline by a THIRD

Wed, Jun 20, 2012

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Researchers from the Natural History Museum in Madrid counted chinstrap penguins in Antarctica’s South Shetland Islands in 1991-1992 and again in 2008-2009. They discovered a frightening decline in penguin population in the area, with one species culled by more than a third. The most affected species at hand is the chinstrap penguin, named so after the black strip [...]

Naked penguin chicks amaze scientists

Thu, Apr 14, 2011

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In the last couple of years researchers have been confronted with a peculiar case in the Atlantic penguin colonies as an increased number of penguin chicks have been found to be suffering from what seems to be a feather loss causing disorder. Scientists have been studying the phenomena for a few years now, but have [...]

The emperor: major penguin colony disappears

Tue, Mar 8, 2011

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It’s another bad omen for life on Earth, as a colony of imperial penguins from the Antarctica peninsula has disappeared, probably due to the warming of ice caused by global warming. It was expected that penguins would greatly suffer from the warming, but this is the first documented case ever of the disappearance of a [...]

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