The largest of the penguins, the emperor, walks on snow all its life and rests in the snow, and when it decides to swim, it swims in water at sub-zero temperatures.
Obviously, the thick feather cover serves as reliable protection from frost. But penguins have bare feet. Aren't they cold standing? For example, some especially heat-loving people, even in Thailand, will wet their feet in the sea at plus twenty degrees - and run away screaming...
Penguin paws are an amazing creation of nature. Compared to the paws of other birds, they are strongly shifted back, and therefore the penguin’s gait is quite human. This is, so to speak, an upright bird. However, the penguin needs a non-standard arrangement of paws mainly in order to swim better. Among marine life, the penguin is one of the fastest swimmers, second only to the dolphin in speed. In the water, its paws serve as its rudder and brake.
When the chicks emerge, mother and father take turns diving into the ocean and bringing them food. Encyclopedia Britannica estimates that the cooling potential of the water they are immersed in is equivalent to exposure to minus 20 degrees Celsius with wind speeds of 110 km/h. Antarctica is not the coast of Thailand! Let's take into account that a penguin usually cuts through water at a speed of 16-32 km/h. Not the warmest conditions. But the penguin's skin is protected by a layer of air under the feathers, and only the paws come into direct contact with the water. After the penguin has acquired food, it returns to the family, sits on the baby to protect it from the cold, and sees off its wife, who goes for the next portion of grub. Consequently, he stepped from the icy water onto the snow. Maybe the penguin has ice instead of paws? It looks like it. Penguins' paws actually cool down to a very low temperature - scientists measured it. If penguin feet were warmer, the birds would lose too much heat through their surface.
This low temperature is ensured by the unique circulatory system that penguins are endowed with. Warm blood flows to the toes through the arteries and immediately, having cooled, flows back through the veins, which run parallel to the arteries, side by side with them.
In short, heat exchange occurs between two opposing blood streams. As a result, a state of balance is achieved: the paws are cool enough not to waste heat, but the blood supply is normal, protecting the body from frostbite and tissue damage. The penguin's feet consist mainly of highly branched tendons. They have almost no muscle tissue, and it is the muscles that cause pain when they freeze.
However, there is another explanation. The penguin is a proud bird: it would rather die than complain about life.
It is believed that penguins are very frost-resistant, and low temperatures are an indispensable condition for their habitat. In fact, among these birds there are also heat-loving varieties. For example, Galapagos penguins living on the islands of the same name. The year-round temperature there does not fall below +18 degrees.
Gentoo penguins are considered to be the kind of record holders in the world of penguins. When swimming, they reach a speed of 36 km/h.
Penguins do not like to walk on loose snow, as they fall into it. To move comfortably during warmer weather, they lie on their stomachs and glide, using their wings and paws to push off.
If you adapt the famous quote by Maxim Gorky to penguins, you will get “those born to swim cannot fly.” These birds are amazing swimmers, but the open air is inaccessible to them.
Penguins are also great dives. And if the bird is really hungry, and there is nothing edible on the surface of the ocean, it is able to get food at a depth of up to 200 m. However, only one species of bird can reach such a depth - king penguins.
Penguins are the only birds that can not only stand upright, but also walk in this position.
Rock penguins received this nickname because they love not only to go into the water, but to jump into it from rocks.
Emperor penguins are true giants among their fellows. Their weight exceeds 27 kilos, and their height is over a meter.
Penguin chicks are born completely naked. Their “clothing” of feathers takes several weeks to form. The baby sometimes has to wait more than a year for the most important feathers – waterproof ones – to appear. Until they grow, the bird lives with its parents, even if it has almost reached the size of a large individual. These feathers, as well as a layer of subcutaneous fat, help penguins accumulate heat and withstand frost.
Penguins' ability to walk vertically is due to the fact that their short and thick legs are not located directly at the center of gravity, but slightly behind. That's why they walk so straight, awkwardly swaying from one foot to the other.
Patagonian penguins are considered the most resilient swimmers among penguins. Having reached the goal, such a penguin can spend about three weeks on the road and cover one and a half thousand kilometers during this time.
Not all penguins are good-natured and meek. For example, stone ones have a rather bad character. They are noisy and often rush to attack an object they find unpleasant.
The penguin couple lives according to the laws of “matriarchy”. After laying the eggs, the female leaves them to her caring father, and she goes off to “earn a living”: she gets food for her partner and the cubs. When babies are born, the father even has something like milk in his esophagus, which he feeds to the offspring, regurgitating this mass.
Once a year, penguins shed their old plumage and grow new ones. This process takes up to three weeks.
One of the varieties of penguins - Magellanic - is named after Ferdinand Magellan. In 1520, near the island of Tierra del Fuego, a traveler was the first to discover these animals.
Penguins do not require fresh water to quench their thirst. Their bodies contain glands that can remove salt from sea water. Salt impurities are released through grooves in the beak, and the bird, having desalinated the water in this way, completely quenches its thirst.
Penguins are the cutest creatures, amazing and beautiful in their own way. It is not for nothing that they often become characters in various cartoons - many believe that a penguin is something fluffy, warm and thick, much like a domestic cat. This, of course, is not true, but there are several interesting facts associated with these creatures.
- Penguins are afraid of killer whales, and naturally, the latter hunt them with enthusiasm. When penguins do not know whether their natural enemy is nearby, they crowd for a long time on the edge of the ice floe until the bravest member of the flock dares to dive. If he survives, the others follow him (see facts about killer whales).
- Not all penguins live in polar latitudes. Galapagos penguins, for example, live on the islands of the same name, and the average annual temperature there is about +18 degrees Celsius.
- The largest penguins in the world are emperor penguins. Ten out of twelve months of the year they live in Antarctica (see facts about Antarctica).
- Penguins really do not freeze in cold water thanks to a thick layer of fat and feathers that fit tightly together.
- Polar penguin species can withstand temperatures down to -60 degrees
- Penguins' feet don't get cold either, because the number of nerve endings in them is minimal.
- Emperor penguins are monogamous and mate for life.
- Penguins are very careful about their eggs. One day, a group of geologists stole an egg from them in order to eat it, but a flock of penguins began to pursue them. No, no plot for a horror movie - the penguins just silently followed the people. The geologists decided to give them the egg, after which the chase stopped.
- Gentoo penguins reach speeds of over 35 kilometers per hour when swimming.
- Penguins often move on slippery ice by lying on their stomachs and pushing off the surface with their wings and paws.
- Penguins prefer to fish in the upper layers of water, but if necessary, they are capable of diving to depths of up to 150-200 meters.
- Penguins are the only birds in the world that can walk upright (see bird facts).
- Not all penguins are harmless cuties. Rock penguins, for example, have a rather aggressive disposition. They can easily attack any object they don't like.
- Once a year, penguins grow new feathers, getting rid of old ones.
- Penguins do not need fresh water - they are able to drink salty sea water, since special glands in their body filter out the salt.
- Emperor penguins hunt on average once every two weeks, eating to their heart's content. During this break, they can lose up to half of their mass.
- In penguin flocks, experienced old males teach young ones how to hunt.
- The most common penguins in the world are golden-haired penguins. There are about twenty million of them.
- All penguin species live in large colonies, except one - the magnificent penguin, which lives in New Zealand.
- In emperor penguins, eggs are incubated not by females, but by males.
- Expressing tender feelings, the male spectacled penguin gently strokes his female on the head with his wing.
- Penguins just seem clumsy. Yes, on land this is true, but in water they turn out to be surprisingly dexterous and agile creatures.
- Antarctic penguins build their nests using stones and earth as building materials.
- Of all the penguin species, the magnificent penguins love water the least. They spend most of their lives on land.
- All penguins have black backs. This allows you to better attract all the heat - black color is known to promote heating.
- Penguin is the symbol of the Linux operating system.
Penguins are represented by many species and are quite common on the planet. Their characteristic gait makes them funny creatures that appeal to both children and adults. There are several fascinating facts associated with this interesting family.
Penguins lost the ability to fly sixty-two million years ago
Initially, these birds could fly, but over time they began to swim more actively and, as a result, lost the ability to rise into the air. The most amazing thing is how long ago penguins began to strive for life in the water. The oldest species discovered during excavations lived sixty million years ago. And by that time they could not fly, although they were not as well adapted to life in water as modern ones. Scientists believe that ancient penguins moved along the surface of the water.
Giant penguins weighing eighty kilograms lived in New Zealand forty million years ago.
When we look at historical facts about penguins, we can learn amazing details about their ancestors. At the moment, the largest are emperor penguins. They are more than a meter tall and weigh forty-five kilograms. In New Zealand, traces of ancient penguins that lived here forty million years ago were found - they were taller than one and a half meters and weighed about eighty kilograms! Scientists were unable to determine whether it was a specific species or whether such sizes were the result of natural factors, because here the birds had no natural enemies and there was an incredible amount of food. Over time, whales began to appear here, which became a danger to penguins - as a result, they became extinct twenty-five million years ago. 
Penguins are predators
The harmless appearance of the animal, as if dressed in a tailcoat, attracts children and adults, which is why penguins are real favorites of zoo visitors. But not all people who are touched by a cute creature that comically minces with its small paws know that they are dangerous predators that feed exclusively on meat. Penguins catch fish and other sea creatures, such as squid and octopus. This diet is caused by the location of distribution - most penguins live in Antarctica, where there are practically no plants. Moreover, they are not only predators, but also food for predators, especially in childhood - they are hunted by seals and killer whales.
Penguins can endure cold temperatures of minus seventy degrees Celsius by congregating close to each other.
Emperor penguins are able to withstand the harsh Antarctic climate through adaptation. They have a thick layer of feathers that help reduce heat loss, and penguins can control blood flow to warm certain parts of the body. Most importantly, to survive, they work in groups, huddling together in a dense crowd, huddling together and keeping each other warm. The penguins don't just stand, they constantly change places so that no one has to stand all the time at the edge, where it is coldest, and no one always remains in the center, where it is warmer. 
Penguins can dive five hundred meters
The largest penguins in existence today, emperor penguins, are capable of things that are inaccessible to others precisely because of their size. For example, when diving, they are able to dive to a depth of five hundred meters. To compensate for the pressure they have to withstand, their bodies have certain features. For example, they have dense bones - in other birds they are filled with air. This helps minimize barotrauma. During a dive, the pulse is reduced as much as possible to save oxygen, and the emperor penguin's blood has a special composition that allows the body to function longer without breathing.
Penguins can drink salt water
The digestive system of these birds is ideally adapted to life near the sea. Fun fact: They have a gland in their throat that filters salt from their bloodstream. This allows penguins to drink salty seawater if they are thirsty. It could kill a person! 
Penguins live in colonies of two hundred thousand birds.
Emperor penguins form groups to survive, but other species prefer to live together. Golden-haired penguins love company more than others - they can live in colonies of several hundred thousand birds. As a result of this habitat, penguins have developed a unique way of communicating with other birds. They do not have a complex language, but they do have a specific vocal system with which males and females can communicate.
Emperor penguins lay only one egg during the breeding season
During the cold Antarctic months, emperor penguins begin to breed and each female can lay only one egg. This is due to the fact that protecting it from the cold is already difficult, so more eggs would simply disappear. The emperor penguin is the fifth largest bird on the planet. During incubation, males lose a quarter of their weight. However, only a fifth of all chicks survive the first year of their life. 
On average, emperor penguins live up to twenty years, while scientists believe that some can live up to fifty. As a result of high juvenile mortality, the average age of 80% of penguins in the population is five years or more.
Penguins do not live in the northern hemisphere
Penguins can only be found in one hemisphere of the planet. When these birds were first discovered, they were confused with loons. These are northern birds that may be somewhat similar to penguins, but are a completely separate genus. Modern loons can fly, although they do not show brilliant results in this matter. All their common features with penguins are explained by joint development and survival in similar territories.
Penguins can swim at speeds of up to forty kilometers per hour
The penguin cannot fly, but it swims just fine. Tiny wings turn into powerful engines in the water. Usually these birds move no faster than fifteen kilometers per hour, but in case of danger due to an attack by a seal or killer whale, they can accelerate significantly - even up to forty kilometers per hour!
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