Female and male penguins get together, to mate, every year. The female will make a nest and lay one or two eggs. The nest will be either an underground burrow or made of grass or stones. Penguins, on land, walk awkwardly. They are also very unique birds. No penguin lives on the Arctic, where the North Pole is. All penguins live in the Southern Hemisphere. Penguins spend most of their lives in the water, although they can only hold their breaths for a couple of minutes. Many penguins live in different weather areas. Such as the cold Antarctica and the warm, tropical islands. Penguins nearly always live on islands to keep themselves safe from their predators.

The largest penguin is the Emperor Penguin at 1 metre tall. They can weigh up to 41 kilograms. The Fairy Penguin is the smallest type of penguin alive. They are 41 centimetres tall and weigh about 1 kilogram. The female and male penguins take turns looking after their egg and keeping it warm. The time of the chick hatching varies between one and two months depending what type penguin it is. The chick finds a mate when it is all grown up. Penguins’ black and white feathers are waterproof and shiny. The colour of their feathers acts as a camouflage for them underwater. The camouflage helps them to protect themselves from predators such as killer whales, sharks and leopard seals. Every year penguins molt their feathers and grow new ones. When they molt their old feathers drop off.

There have been protests from the gay rights group since a German zoo has made plans to split homosexual penguins up. Four female Humboldt penguins had been flown in by the Bremerhaven Zoo. They are trying to encourage three couples,that were all males, to reproduce. The zoo defended the experiment, saying that the birds were an endangered species. Following the protests from the gay rights group the director, Heike Kueck, said that the zoo is not allowing the plan. She said: "Everyone can live here as they please."

Kueck said that she did not want to force the gay couples to break up and make them get together with a female. She also said it was impossible to break the couples up. She also said that the penguins had shown not much interest in their new female friends, but said that the experiment could have been started a bit too late in the year. Gay groups wrote a letter earlier on to Bremerhaven’s Mayor Joerg Schulz. They protested against "the organised and forced harassment through female seductresses“.

Scientists have just discovered that thousands of Adelie Penguins live successfully in areas of the freezing Southern Ocean near Antarctica's borderline. In these special areas of the ocean, called polynyas, penguins don't need to travel far to find food. Lots of the shallow ocean near Antarctica is covered with ice, but polynyas are not. That's what makes them special. Without a layer of ice covering it, the ocean water is hit with sunlight and tiny floating algae called phytoplankton grow and spread very quickly. Phytoplankton is the beginning of the ocean food chain, so when it does well, the animals that eat it do too! A tiny, shrimp-like animal called krill eats the phytoplankton. Since there is so much phytoplankton in a polynya, the little krill munch away and have babies rapidly, becoming big in numbers. Krill is the main food for Adelie Penguins as well as other animals such as seals and whales. So, when the krill is growing in numbers, so are the penguins!

Researchers say that they didn't know how much the penguins depended on polynyas before their study. How could thousands of penguins have been hidden from scientists in these ocean areas for so long? The polynyas are impossible to see from ships because they are surrounded by ice. So, the scientists had to use two satellites to take a closer look at them. The satellites provided weekly measurements of the amount of chlorophyll in the polynyas. Chlorophyll is the pigment in plants that makes them green. It allows them to take the Sun's energy through photosynthesis to make their own food. If the satellites recorded more chlorophyll in the polynyas, then that meant the phytoplankton were doing well. Where there is phytoplankton there is krill and were there is krill there is penguins!

A. Food preferences and resources 1. Penguins eat krill, squids and fish. Many different species of penguins have slightly different food favourites, which decreases competition among species. 2. The smaller penguin species of the Antarctic and the sub Antarctic primarily feed on krill and squids. Species found farther north tend to eat fish (Del Hoyo, et al., 1992). 3. Adélies feed primarily on small krill, while chinstraps forage for large krill (Del Hoyo, et al., 1992). 4. Emperors and kings primarily eat fishes and squids (Kooyman, 1971). B. Food intake 1. Intake varies with the quantity and variety of food available from different areas at different times of the year (del Hoyo, et al., 1992). 2. A colony of 5 million Adélies may eat nearly 8 million kg (17.6 million lb.) of krill and small fish daily (Sparks and Soper, 1987).

C. Method of collecting and eating food 1. Penguins feed at sea. Most feeding occurs within 15.3 to 18.3 m (50-60 ft.) of the surface. The location of prey can differ seasonally and even daily (Del Hoyo, et al., 1992) 2. Penguins primarily rely on their vision while hunting (Marchant, 1990). It is not known how penguins locate prey in the darkness, at night, or at great depths, but some scientists guess that penguins are helped by the fact that many oceanic squids, crustaceans, and fish are bioluminescent (they produce light) (Del Hoyo, et al., 1992). 3. Penguins catch prey with their bills and swallow it whole while swimming (Del Hoyo, et al., 1992). Penguins have a spiny tongue and powerful jaws to grip slippery prey (Sparks and Soper, 1987; Brooke and Birkhead, 1991).

Adelie Penguins Adelie penguins weigh about 11 pounds and measure 28 inches tall. Their nests are made of pebbles. After the nests are built the female lays the eggs. The female goes out to sea for food. While she is gone, which may be weeks, the male stays and protects the nest and the eggs. He doesn't leave, not even to eat!. Adelies reproduce on the exposed rock all around the Antarctic continent. Adelies eat mainly krill, which makes up about 99% of their diet. Their predators are: McCormick skuas, sheathbills, giant petrels, and leopard seals.

Macaroni Penguin The macaroni penguin stands at about 28 inches tall and weighs 9 pounds. The macaroni lives in the warmer antarctic waters. Macaroni penguins breed on sub- Antarctic islands south of the Americas and Africa during the summer. Their nests are underdeveloped scraps in mud or gravel among rocks. Two eggs are laid with only one chick usually being raised. Incubation is shared by both parents in long shifts. The egg hatches after 33 to 37 days. The male guards the chicks for 23 to 25 days while the female bring food daily. The chicks are ready to leave the nests at about 60 to 70 days old. Their predators are: brown skuas, sheathbills, and leopard seals.

Emperor Penguin The Emperor penguin is the largest of all penguins standing at 45 inches tall, and weighing between pounds. The emperor penguins are the largest diving birds. They can dive to depths of 1,500 feet. The average dive is 60 to 70 feet deep. Emperor penguins are only found on and around the Antarctic continent. Differences in their calls help to distinguish males from females. Emperors breed on the fast ice all around the Antarctic continent in late May through June. Females lay a single egg onto their feet and immediately transfer it to the male. The male heats the egg on his feet underneath a fold of abdominal skin, throughout the entire winter. Their predators are: orcas, seals, and giant petrels.

Yellow Eyed Penguins The yellow-eyed penguin weighs 19.1 pounds and is about 26 inches tall. They live in New Zealand. They eat small fish. Yellow-eyed penguins are thought to be the closest to the original penguins in appearance. Yellow-eyed penguins breed from September to March. Nests are made in dense undergrowth. Two eggs are laid. Incubation takes 39 to 51 days. Chicks are guarded by one parent while the other is out collecting food for 40 days. The chicks go out on their own when they are about 106 days old. Their predators are: stoats, ferrets, dogs, and large fish.

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