Emperor Penguin
Description
Penguins are a group of aquatic flightless birds. Most penguins feed on krill, fish, squid and other forms of sea life in the water which they catch while swimming underwater. They spend roughly half of their lives on land and the other half in sea. Although almost all penguin species are native to Southern Hemisphere. Penguins are highly adapted to water. The oldest known fossil penguin species is Waimanu manneringi, which lived in the early Paleocene epoch of new Zealand. Some prehistoric species attained enormous sizes, becoming as tall or as heavy as an adult human. There're several genus of penguins such as Pygoscelis, Aptenodytes, Spheniscus etc.
Emperor Penguins
Emperor Penguin is the tallest and the heaviest penguin species living in the world. Their height is about 1.1-1.3m. An adult penguin weights about 23kg. Emperor Penguin is a bird that is native to Antarctic. Their life span is about 20 years. They can dive deeper than ay other bird. (Including other penguins) Emperor penguins don't build a nest. The emperor penguin breeds in the coldest environment of any bird species; air temperatures may reach −40 °C (−40 °F), and wind speeds may reach 144 km/h (89 mph). Water temperature is a frigid −1.8 °C (28.8 °F), which is much lower than the emperor penguin's average body temperature of 39 °C (102 °F). Emperor penguin is the only penguin species that breeds during the Antarctic winter. It is the fifth heaviest living bird species, after only the larger varieties of ratite. Emperor Penguin chicks are covered with silvery-grey down and have black heads and white masks. Emperor Penguin feed mostly on Antarctic silverfish as well as other species of fish, krill and some squid and the interesting topic is an adult penguin eats about 2-3 kg of food per day.
Classification
Scientific name - Aptenodytes forsteri
Order- Sphenisciformes
Family- Spheniscidae
Kingdom- Animalia
Class- Aves
Phylum - Chordata
Genus- Aptenodytes
Distribution
The emperor penguin has a circumpolar distribution in the Antarctic almost exclusively between the 66° and 77° south latitudes. It almost always breeds on stable pack ice near the coast and up to 18 km (11 mi) offshore.
Emperor penguins breed on the sea-ice in bitterly cold conditions. There are no materials to build nests from but the eggs have to be kept warm until they hatch. So the female, who leaves the colony over winter, gives the egg to her partner who carefully puts it on his feet and covers it with a skin fold.
Emperor penguin chicks are preyed upon by other birds like southern giant petrels and south polar skua, while orcas and leopard seals are know to feed on adult emperor penguins.
