Penguins will sing and dance on the big screen again this month which will surely lead to a Christmas-time buying frenzy of merchandise slathered with Penguin images. Entertainment and humor are wonderful and we highly support and encourage both, but as the penguin movie watching and buying frenzy begins we’d like to offer a little information accompany the Hollywood hype:

• Penguins’ swimming ability is well-known, but they evolved from flying birds about 40 million years ago
• There are 17 species of penguins. They are found in the wild only in the southern hemisphere
• The Galapagos penguin, indigenous to the Galapagos Islands near the equator off of South America’s West Coast, is the northernmost species and is considered endangered with a wild population of approximately 800 breeding pairs
• Penguins are sexually dimorphic (both males and females look-alike) but during the breeding season females are sometimes identified by the muddy footprints left on their backs by breeding males
• They can stay underwater as long as 18 minutes and dive as deep as 500 meters (1,640 ft.) but the krill, fish and shrimp they depend on for food is typically in water of 60 feet or less
• The ‘World’s Smallest Penguin’ award goes to Australia and New Zealand’s 9-inch-tall the fairy penguin; the winner of the tallest penguin is Antarctica’s emperor standing 3-4 feet

Sources: Seaworld.org;
Howard, L. 2003. “Sphenisciformes” (On-line), Animal Diversity Web. Accessed November 10, 2011
Animal Diversity Web