The emperor penguin is the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species. The male and female are similar in plumage and size, reaching 100 cm in length and weighing from 22 to 45 kg. Its diet consists primarily of fish, but also includes crustaceans, such as krill, and cephalopods. While hunting, the species can remain submerged around 20 minutes, diving to a depth of 535m.
About Emperor penguin in brief
The emperor penguin is the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species. The male and female are similar in plumage and size, reaching 100 cm in length and weighing from 22 to 45 kg. Its diet consists primarily of fish, but also includes crustaceans, such as krill, and cephalopods. While hunting, the species can remain submerged around 20 minutes, diving to a depth of 535 m. The lifespan is typically 20 years in the wild, although observations suggest that some individuals may live to 50 years of age. Emperor penguins were described in 1844 by English zoologist George Robert Gray. Its specific name is in honour of the German naturalist Johann Reinhold Forster, who accompanied Captain James Cook on his second voyage and officially named five other pengu in the genus Aptenodytes. A penguin was seen in 2001, but was not considered to be an albino, but the upper mandible of the chick can be pink, orange or lilac. The adult has deep black plumage covering the head, chin, throat, back, and the dorsal part of the tail. The underparts of the wings and belly are pale yellow in colour, while the upper breast, pale-yellow breast and bright-yellow ear patches are bright yellow. In juveniles, the auricular patches, chin and throat are white, while its bill is black and the lower mandible can be orange, pink or pink. The emperor penguins are the fifth heaviest living bird species, after only the larger varieties of ratite.
A male Emperor penguin must withstand the extreme Antarctic winter cold for more than two months while protecting his egg. He eats nothing during this time. Most male emperors will lose around 12 kg while they wait for their eggs to hatch. The female lays a single egg, which is incubated for just over two months by the male while the female returns to the sea to feed; parents subsequently take turns foraging at sea and caring for their chick in the colony. The mean weight of males at the start of the breeding season is 38 kg and that of females is 29. 5 kg. After the breedingSeason this drops to 23 kg for both sexes. The weight also varies by season, as both male andFemale penguins lose substantial mass while raising hatchlings and incubating their egg. It is the only penguin Species that breeds during the Antarctic winter, trekking 50–120 km over the ice to breeding colonies which can contain up to several thousand individuals. It has streamlined bodies to minimize drag while swimming, and wings that are more like stiff, flat flippers. The tongue is equipped with rear-facing barbs to prevent prey from escaping when caught. It is thought to have split off from a branch which led to all other living penguing species around 40 million years ago, but fossil evidence suggests this split occurred around three million years ago.
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This page is based on the article Emperor penguin published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 20, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
