The Penguins are categorized in to the bird family. Because they lay eggs and have warm blood as birds. All of them in same black and white combination of color skins. Because of this color they can protect them self from their enemies such as a leopard seal or the killer whale while they swim on the water. The other thing is the black back side of these birds absorbs the warmth from the sun and helps keep them to be warm.
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Sphenisciformes
Family: Spheniscidae
They are Good Swimmers
Although they categorize as birds they can’t fly like other birds live on the earth. They are good swimmers. Like bird fly on the air they use their flippers for swimming through the water. Penguins are spending more than 75% of their time in underwater for finding foods. They can dive very deep in under water and their large round eyes help them to see through the water very clearly. You may wonder sometime, to which category these animals are belongs. Because most of the time of their life is spend in the sea but they cannot breaths under the water like other animals live in the water. But they are able to hold their breath long time in the water.
Where They Live?
There are 17 species of penguins in the world, each distinctive. You can see this fun innocent creature at Antarctica, Africa, Australia and many other cold countries like New Zealand. When they are in land they move over the land by walking, jumping and sliding. Once the penguins are ready to mate, male penguin stand on and make a loud call to attract the female. When the penguin finds a mate, they bond with each other by touching themselves. They also "sing" to each other and learn to recognize each other's voices. Normally they keep these affairs for years and like to have their own chicks. Female penguin lays one or two eggs and makes the nest to protect from dangers. They made their nest from rocks, pebbles, sticks and anything they can find from the environment they live on. After they lay eggs, female go out for find food while male penguin waits to protect the eggs. When female returns male penguin go for find out food.
When the chick is hatched, it starts to make sounds and its parents recognize chick by voice. Now both of the parents can go for find out foods and chick is stay with the group of penguin until parents return. Parents identify their chick from the group by recognizing its voice. Male and female both bring foods in their stomach for chick and care him until strong enough to find food their own.
How They Warm Their Body?The Penguins are warm blooded and their body temperature is near to 100 F. But, how do they stay warm in the cold places like Antarctica? As you normally see in the pictures penguins always like to stay together with their group. Penguins huddled shoulder to shoulder with their wings tight against their body keeping each other warm. The other thing is they have a layer of fat under their skin called "blubber". That helps them to keep in warm.
What They Eat?
The diet of penguins varies by the species and in some cases, the location of penguins find foods in the ocean. They eat fish, crustaceans (like krill, etc.) and squid. Young penguins eat up to two pounds of food an hour.
Why We Need To Save Them?
Millions of penguins were killed by ancient people to get the oil from their body. This oil is used as lamp fuel and the painting material. Nowadays it is totally prohibited to hunt the penguins, but unfortunately still its happening.
The global warming is also directly affected to this little creature’s life. This causes to drop off the amount of food for them in the ocean. The reduction of their food supply would result to decrease the number of penguin friends are live on the earth.