Penguins

Alex Re

Hello, welcome to on wildlife. I'm your host, Alex Re. On this podcast, we bring the wild to you, we take you on a journey into the life of a different animal every week. And I guarantee you, you're gonna come out of here knowing more about your favorite animal than you did before. I'm sure you all know about the animal I'm going to talk about today. And because it's winter, I thought it would be a good time to make an episode about an animal that's known for living in one of the coldest ecosystems on Earth. So grab a nice warm jacket, because we're heading to Antarctica to talk about penguins.

There are 18 different species of penguins, and the one that you're probably most familiar with is the emperor penguin. And contrary to popular belief, penguins don't only exist in extremely cold weather, you can find them in Antarctica. But there are also species that live in Australia, New Zealand, Africa, South America, and the Galapagos Islands, meaning that some species live in areas with no snow at all, and in tropical climates. But the two things that they all have in common is that they can't fly. And they all live near the ocean. And they actually spend around 80% of their lives in the ocean, but we'll get to why that is later on in the episode. Penguins may seem small when you watch them on TV, but the emperor penguin can get to be over three feet tall, and weigh around 100 pounds. So it can easily win in a fight with a small child. But because there are so many species of penguins, we know that they're not all the same. If you wanted to see a smaller, less threatening Penguin, the little blue Penguin, which is native to Australia and New Zealand is the way to go. They're a little over a foot tall, and we just about three pounds, and they're named for their blue feathers. In order to keep warm. Penguins have a lot of feathers that we're going to talk about in depth later. And they prefer to live near colder waters because their bodies are so efficient at retaining heat, that warmer waters can cause them to overheat. If you look at the coloration of many penguin species, they're white on their underside and black on their backs. And this coloration is similar to orcas. And it probably has something to do with not being seen by their prey underwater. It's darker at the bottom of the ocean than at the top. So their black coloration on their back helps them blend in with the bottom of the ocean. While they're white coloration on their bellies helps them blend in with the top of the ocean. Speaking of prey, penguins are carnivores, so they mainly eat krill, squid and fish. And as you can probably tell penguins hump their prey underwater. Yellow eyed penguins can dive around 120 meters up to 200 times a day to find food, and one female emperor penguin was recorded to dive 535 meters underwater. On land, most penguins have no natural predators. And in the sea, they're eaten by leopard seals and killer whales. To catch fish and escape predators. Penguins have to move quickly under the water. And they can swim around 10 kilometers per hour. Michael Phelps can only swim 7.6 kilometers per hour. How do they move so fast? Well, there are a few adaptations that penguins have that really helped them with this. First of all, their webbed feet help them steer while they're swimming. And they're also set far back on their bodies so that they can be tucked away. And this is actually why they waddle. Second, they're kind of shaped like a mini torpedo, meaning that they have very little resistance when going through the water. And the way that they actually propel themselves through the water is by using their wings. They can't help the penguins fly, but they're adapted to be great flippers. It also helps that they have really strong wing muscles. Not only that, but their feathers also play an important part in their speed. Penguins have many different types of feathers, some of which we'll get into later when we talk about thermo regulation. Two types of feathers that they have are called pleau mules and after feathers. These feathers trap air when they're underwater. And when the penguins are ready to leap out of the water. They push against these feathers to form air bubbles around the body of the penguin. These bubbles help reduce drag and almost help propel them out of the water. Every few meters the penguins leap out of the water to catch their breath. And they actually have a gland by their eyes, that excretes salt that they take in. Because when you're chasing down your food, you don't really have time to worry about how much salt water you're taking in. Have you ever tried To open your eyes in the ocean, it's pretty painful. This is why penguins have an extra eyelid that's clear, they can close that eyelid under the water so that they can see their prey clearly, penguins can also migrate anywhere between 60 and 100 miles. They either walk or toboggan, meaning they propel themselves on their stomach using their feet and their flippers. Okay, we're gonna take our first break. And when we get back, I'm going to start talking about penguin colonies.

Who's ready for a new trivia question? What is the largest animal on earth? A an elephant, be a hippo. See a blue whale? Or d a crocodile?

The answer is see a blue whale. They can get to be over 80 feet long and weigh over 300,000 pounds. They're the largest animals to have ever lived on earth. Okay, we're back. So a group of penguins is called a colony or a rockery. And these colonies can contain upwards of 1 million mating pairs, which means 2 million penguins. penguins are monogamous during the breeding season, and sometimes they can even mate for life. And during breeding season, male penguins fast for extended periods of time, so they have to stock up on their food before doing this. And they're ready to mate after three to eight years old. A lot of penguin species use sound in order to attract mates. The blue penguin for example, gets in a specific stance and makes a loud mating call. If the female wants to meet, then she'll join him in the stance and the mating call. There have also been studies showing that when one penguin gives a mating call, it increases the amount of other penguins around that area that want to mate as well. emperor penguins lay only one egg, and most other species lay two eggs. The parents share responsibility of the egg, passing it between each other's legs to keep it warm. Emperor Penguin males solely take care of the egg while the female hunts for several weeks, and incubation period for the egg is about two months. Because emperor penguins don't build nests, they tuck the egg between their legs and under their stomach to keep it warm. But most other species of penguins do build nests. And for example, the Gentoo penguin builds its nest from rocks and the little blue penguin can build its nest in a cave or in the sand. Keeping the egg warm is extremely important specifically for penguins that live in Antarctica, like the king penguin and the emperor penguin. And keeping warm in general isn't easy. So they have a few adaptations and behaviors that help them do this. The act of keeping a stable body temperature is called thermo regulation. One of the main behaviors that they have is huddling together, emperor penguins can huddled together up to 19 penguins per square meter. For comparison, the average parking spot is 12 square meters. That's 228 penguins that could fit in one parking spot. But huddling together isn't the only thing keeping these birds warm. their feathers play a really important role in this as well. As I said before, they have multiple layers of feathers. Each one of these feathers has a different job in keeping the penguin warm. The ones I mentioned earlier, blue mules and after feathers are both insulators that keep warm air near their body and cold air away from their body. Then they have another issue, they spend a lot of their time in ice cold waters. That's what the other layer of feathers called contour feathers are for. They make up the outermost layer of feathers. And what penguins will do is to create an oil from a glands near their tail and rub this oil all over these feathers. The oil repels water from getting in and stops their feathers from freezing. their feathers are so important for their survival that they spend hours each day grooming them. But what are penguins that live in warmer temperatures Do they have the opposite problem because they have to keep themselves cool? Well, some penguins have skin around their eyes that doesn't have any feathers, and this skin helps release heat. Not only that, but they also raise their wings and move their feathers in order to release heat from their bodies. Okay, we're going to take our last break and when we get back I'm going to talk about how penguins communicate.

If you want more information About penguins, or you just want to suggest a new animal for me to talk about, you can email on wildlife dot podcast@gmail.com You can also visit our website@www.on wildlife.org. Okay, we're back and I'm going to start talking about penguin communication. As I talked about before, penguins like to use vocalizations in order to communicate with each other. This behavior is common among most birds, and they need to have pretty exceptional hearing in order to do the things that they do. For penguins that form huddles like the emperor penguin, it can be extremely difficult to single out your mates or your offsprings call because there are 1000s of other penguins in that same area calling as well. There's evidence to suggest that the penguins use the amount of time the call is made, the frequency of the call and the loudness of the call to identify each other. But to us, it's almost impossible to spot the difference between two calls. They can also communicate through body language, which is especially important when defending territories. Many penguins are very territorial. The little blue penguin has many different displays that are given off when someone comes into their territory, and the kind of display given depends on how far the intruder is from them. If one penguin gets too close to another's territory, the penguin might even retaliate by slapping the other one with its flipper. penguins are both predators and prey, which is part of the reason why they're so important to the ecosystems that they live in. They control populations of fish and other sea creatures, while also being a food source for larger animals like orcas. They also help to fertilize the ground by providing nutrients from the sea in the form of their poop. Obviously, penguins are adorable, so they're really popular tourist attractions in their natural habitat. This can be a good thing or a bad thing. Antarctica and the Galapagos Islands are two places where positive tourism takes place because it's regulated, and the money gained from tourism usually goes towards wildlife conservation. On the other hand, places where penguin tourism isn't as regulated can cause harm to the penguins. Some studies have shown that certain human activities increase the stress levels in penguins, which can cause behavioral and physical issues. And of course, another major issue that penguins are facing, especially in the Arctic is climate change. As many of you know, climate change is causing the ice sheets in Antarctica to melt rapidly. Unfortunately, these ice sheets are where emperor penguins breed and incubate their eggs, meaning that they're running out of room to do this. In some areas, emperor penguins have declined by 50% since the 70s. Another issue with melting ice sheets is that one of their main food sources krill, e algae that grows on the ice sheets. If krill can't get enough algae, then they die out and leave a smaller amount of food for the penguins. overfishing is also a major problem because that's what penguins rely on for food. So penguins are definitely facing a lot of problems, and they're vital members of their ecosystem. This is why it's so important to do what we can to help these animals. As always, I have a list of some awesome organizations to check out if you want to help penguins. Take a look at the global penguin society, penguins international and ocean Knights. Thank you so much for coming on this adventure with me as we explored the world of the penguin. You can find the sources that we use for this podcast and links to organizations that we referenced@www.on wildlife.org Join us next Wednesday for another awesome episode. And that's on wildlife.

Jess Avellino

You've been listening to on wildlife with Alex Re brought to you every Wednesday.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai