Is there any party? I am here all dressed up! The world of penguins

Black and white – two colors standing at opposites, in some sort of an antonymic relation; one of them is envisaged by many as a symbol of darkness and whatever is evil and mean in this world and the other one has come to symbolize whatever is angelic and good out there in the same world or perhaps the light in our lives. Even so, there are some things in this life of ours which cannot but be seen in black and white. I am referring here to the animals carrying these colors with them and as you can all imagine I have a certain animal in my mind, better said a bird; not a usual one but rather an adorable one. In order to let you know which is the bird I am referring to, I shall now use a riddle and as such try to make you guess the name of this special, cute black and white bird “What’s black and white and goes round and round?” Did you guess the answer? It is quite easy to guess this one since this bird has made many of us smile when watching it marching in movies depicting their lives. But since I do not want to keep you waiting I shall now reveal the mystery and provide you with the answer “A penguin… stuck in a revolving door.”

You probably heard this before but when thinking about penguins I often tend to associate them in my mind with some very elegantly dressed men wearing tuxedos. Of course little people but even so very elegant ones. Like I happened to read in a poem, it could all be summarized as follows: “When do penguins change their clothes? / They must have others, I suppose. / Can it be that they’re always dressed / In party clothes,  that can’t be messed? / Gathered in suits of black and white / Perfect for some formal night- / Do they expect a king or queen / To grace their distant glacial scene / It would make me feel much better / If I knew they each owned a sweater.” Is this your case too? Would you rather prefer seeing them dressed in pajamas or in sweaters and pants or skirts perhaps in the case of female penguins? That would be quite funny, I have to admit it. With the risk of upsetting you (or not) I have to say that I love their “party clothes” and I think these clothes are of utter importance when it comes to first encountering them and to the impact their looks have upon us.

Tobogganing penguin

Talking about encounters and what makes penguins more or less (I’d say more) cute I shall now take you with me into their world. So, you’d better put on some warm clothes and be ready to find some amazingly interesting facts about them. Or perhaps you should put on a tuxedo too since we are going at a party, are we? When first encountering them normally we shall introduce ourselves: “Hi there, I am Mr. or Mrs. X you’ll say.” “Hello, welcome to our party, they’ll welcome you.” As for the rest of the encounter I will try to imagine how things are about to happen, or perhaps you should be the one doing this. We shall see!

No matter the situation, one shall not pervade their world without some knowledge about their style of life, their hobbies, what they like or they dislike, what kind of parents they are, how they court each other – these kinds of things.

Did you notice that whatever is “petit” as the French would say or “small” as the Englishman would put it tends to be envisaged as cuter than whatever has the attribute of bigness? Such is the case of these rather petit creatures which are to be found inhabiting mainly the areas of Antarctica but not only those places; there are also some other cold coastal areas from New Zealand, South America, South Africa and Australia which seem to make just the perfect place for them to carry on their lives. In case you ever wondered to which family they belong then the mystery is just about to be revealed to you; penguins belong to the family called Spheniscidae and are part of a larger order carrying the scientific name of Sphenisciformes. As for their name rumors say that it has its origin in the Welsh terms ‘pen’ meaning head and ‘gwyn’, meaning white. Does this make penguins some white headed birds? Birds for sure, white and black or brown for sure, cute for sure – in one word penguins.

Baby penguins

If it were for me to sketch a penguin I’d say that even though birds, they are more of a fish, a huge one too, mastering the art of swimming better than the art of flying which in fact remains unknown to them. You may say now that penguins are in fact not veritable birds but even so this does not make them less of a bird as they do have feathers, happen to be warm-blooded and most importantly do lay eggs. They are what many consider to be a colony or rookery of friendly penguins, social birds that do not seem to be bothered by our presence at their party (after all they are all dressed up for this) but they rather prefer their keens and after all is there somebody to blame them?

I honestly think that there is no person out there who can forget their unique waddling they display when walking on ice as most of you happen to find it kind of funny. Being kind of heavy, they sort of move by using a series of   bounces and this must be the reason why people have come up with the so called Penguin Dance, a dance you probably know and already master. (Do you?) If you don’t master it yet or never heard of it then you are just about to discover it. You may not like it or manage to find no connection with the real penguin bird, but even so it was named after this bird.

Even so their heaviness together with some other physical traits such as their small wings and short legs certainly help them be excellent swimmers. They were constructed in such a way that when they are in the water they most certainly feel at home and as such they spend most of their time underwater, just about 75%. Why do they do this? The answer would be that they do this mainly to look for food.

Talking about food they seem to be great amateurs of such delicacies as seafood. As such if you ever have the curiosity to look at their menu then most certainly squid, fish, krill and crustaceans will be there. Quite an exquisite menu don’t you think so? Just the perfect menu for their party life!

And it looks like Mother Nature endowed them with just about the perfect features to make them enjoy their dinner. When I say this I certainly refer to their bill which has some sort of a hook at the end of it, a hook which helps them grab whatever is on their menu. And just in case you tended to think that seafood can at times be quite slippery and leave the poor penguin hungry walking away then most surely the penguin you looked at watched his manners and didn’t drop out his tongue. If he did this then most certainly you would have noticed some sort of backward facing “spines” located on their tongues; these so called bristles come to help them keep the slippery fish right there and practically have no chance to get away. And here I can come up with a funny riddle that can explain it better than I can do “Why do penguins carry fish in their beaks?” The answer to this question: “Because they don’t have pockets!”

And if you ever wondered “What do penguins order for lunch?” then most surely the answer to this question will take many of you by surprise “Ice-burgers!”

Did you ever notice how much penguins look like us? I consider this to be odd yet so interesting and I think that their movements as well as their manners are very similar to ours. When I say this I most certainly have a person in mind. Now try to find your own penguin around you. You will most certainly manage to find one among your friends, your relatives or perhaps your lovers. No offense here since I consider penguins to be really cute and sweet and loveable.

And just to prove you this I have to say to you that even though their life may seem boring to many of you in fact it has more fun than you would have ever expected. Somewhere between their efforts to stay warm, to look up for food, to escape predators and to raise their children they do manage to spend some time playing around. As they find it kind of difficult to travel across ice they would to this by tobogganing that is simply sitting down on their belly and making use of their feet sort of push themselves across the ice. Much like we do when we find a good passage and we feel terribly joyful and enthusiastic. How many times did you this? I have to admit that I did this on numerous occasions and it made me feel excellent. And so do probably feel penguins too!

What about some surfing or diving? Do you happen to find these activities funny and playful too? Most of us do consider them like this and this must be why they are to be mentioned among our favorite hobbies and past time activities. Penguins too seem to enjoy them and as such when you happen to see one of these creatures surfing through the waves just wave your hand at him and be sure that there is enough adrenalin in this activity to make him feel happy. When it comes to diving they seem to be doing this mainly for fun, that is jumping in the water and then climbing back on land. Believe them they must be bored with so much party and probably just try to get rid of their hangover! (I am just joking, but after all who knows what is really going on there in their mind?)

And what better helps them to stand the cold water are the insulating layers of air, skin and blubber as well as a multitude of feathers. As such they come to be perfectly adapted to their environments. And if you ever wondered why their bodies display such colors as the rather classic ones black and white then most surely you never heard anyone mentioning the so called camouflage technique called counter shading. They have black backs in order to fool the predators from the top of the water and they have white bellies in order not to be seen from below. Quite tricky, isn’t it?

Rockhopper Penguins Surfing

So, they may look as a torpedo or as some elegantly miniature men but they are nothing else but masters of camouflage. Or perhaps they are just there ready to take part as some sort of a masked party, a party where they would rather like to be mistaken for someone else, what do you think?

And as you most certainly happened to see penguins marching then you were probably able to see that they had at their side some sort of paddles, actually some flippers, which they make use of while swimming. And just in order not to drawn the feathers on these flippers are shorter. For sure their wedge- like tails also manages to help them swim better. Even though they seem to feel more at home in water they seem to be perfectly equipped to walk on icy land too; true: smaller steps but eve so they manage to keep their balance and walk upright. How do they manage to do this? Well, in case you ever took our time to look carefully at their feet then you must have noticed that their feet and legs are set quite far from the rest of their body. Amazingly enough they also feature some claws on the bottom of their feet. Now just say that Mother Nature does not take care of every little detail! I probably said that before and I will keep stressing this because I simply find it amazing how nature settled it all. Talking about amazing facts I cannot fail to tell you about their ability to remove the salt from the water they drink; they do this by means of some glands that are just there to help them.

And since they appear to love living in large groups then they must as well love to communicate. They do just this by using a quite wide variety of sounds. They may be recurring to these sounds either to protect themselves, to gossip over a cup of tea, or better a juicy fish or perhaps only to impress the loved one and make this one envisage him as the best out of an army of penguins. Many believe that their vocalizations are actually an element that can help one distinguish between them, being some sort of unique prints, noisy ones if you ask me. Rumors also claim that penguins are in fact able to memorize the vocalizations of their close ones (their mate and their chick) after hearing them once or at times twice would be enough. Isn’t this just amazing?

For sure it is! Talking about the sounds released by the cute penguins I have to say that they may be interpreted either as the “Hello! Good Morning! Good afternoon!” they say to one another (after all their dress code requires certain manners as well!), or perhaps just as some sort of a marking of their territory (now don’t be worried! They are perhaps the least aggressive creatures but even so, even the most pacifist person gets angry from time to time, isn’t it true?) They may feel threatened from time to time and this is when they will try to scary their enemy away or they may as well just try to defend their baby penguin or perhaps they feel too excited at the thought of mating and they need to express themselves.

A quite impressive picture would be the one depicting penguins as parents taking care of their chicks, trying to befriend and pat on the back these ones in order to convince them to start moving, or get into the water or at times to feed themselves. Quite touching images for one to watch, I dare say! But tenderness and caring attitude does not end up here since mating partners will most surely exhibit affection as well, for each other this time.

Mating comes to be really interesting in their case or perhaps I should say courtship rather than mating in itself. The courtship in the case of penguins may be considered quite complex and it all starts with an almost urgent need to communicate and as such call for each other. The male penguins will do almost everything trying to reach the attention of a female: will either preen themselves, try to build her a house with a yard (a nice nest in fact) or perhaps try to impress her with its vocal qualities (who knows what he tells her? Perhaps he creates a whole conquering strategy meant to make the female surrender and find him even the more charming. Now you can see that nice clothes are just not enough to get to a woman’s heart!).

I find it amazing how some of the almost 20 species of penguins just manage to make it through a life of monogamy. Not all of them as evidences come to prove it. Even so, the best example of courtship comes from the so called Adélie penguins that are to be envisaged as some sort of an archetype of monogamy. The male begins his bill and cue game by simply rolling a stone at the feet of his tacitly assumed partner. It may come as a surprise to many of you but this stone is only meant to be some sort of a gift for the beloved female, the female Mr. Penguin happens to find attractive. As such, if the female accepts the gift, it all ends up in an embrace, a breast to breast embrace. But, if you ever imagined that it is all for an embrace then most surely you have no knowledge whatsoever about penguins; in this embrace both of the partners usually express their surrendering and happiness to have found each other by singing loudly, flapping their wings and throwing their heads back. Some sort of a prelude of love as some may call it, yet nevertheless a surprising one taking place in the world of these aquatic birds. And if you though that it all ended with a copulation act then you are again wrong; even though spending time apart once they have “caved in” female penguins are able to sense the difference between the calls of other males and her male. Some sort of lovers for life as some may say. But as I said not all penguin species are that faithful. Scientists managed to discover that in the case of certain penguin species females may be what some label as “mere whores” (can this be applied to the world of animals too?); as such even though they find themselves in a relationship, a committed one too, they may succumb to offer sexual favors to other males as well, at times only for some pebbles they need to build their nests. Stones appear to pretty important in the case of penguins, do they? Ironically it looks like it all starts with a stone and it can certainly all end with one.

If it were for me to refer to the so called Emperor penguins I’d have to say that the courtship ritual is pretty impressive in their case too. If you happen to have watched the documentary entitled “March of the Penguins” then most surely you know what I am talking about. Amazingly enough these penguins, I am referring to the couples here, spend most of their couple life apart and only get together once a year (and quite a meeting!), usually late in March. Even though they may be tired as they come after a quite long journey, just to encounter the loved one, they somehow manage to find the strength to start calling for their mating partner and amazingly enough they recognize each other. Once copulation is done, the female returns to the sea to feed and leaves the poor male to take care of the egg (without food). Even so, male penguins huddle together (some sort of a group hug – as those organizing team buildings would say) in order to better conserve body heat in those rather harsh conditions in which they live. And when the female comes after having partied with her sisters, she somehow manages to recognize both her mate and chick by listening to their calls. Amazing, isn’t it?

Yet, the list of amazing things in the case of penguins does not end here. Did you know that penguins prefer sleeping in water rather than on the land? Surprisingly enough they do just this, most often in order to protect themselves from any possible attacks coming from predators.

This is also the reason why they choose to stay together and live in larger groups; mainly because it allows them to hunt together. The situation comes to be quite different when it comes to the privacy of their nests or burrows. In this case they seem to enjoy being kind of independent rather than relying on the others. Let’s take for example the so called Magellanic penguins which prefer digging burrows under the ground in order to build their own underground world; or perhaps we should not fail to mention Adélie penguins and chinstraps penguins that using rocks in their nest building (quite a rare element in their environments) end up fighting over or at times even stealing stones from each other. Quite a funny picture to imagine, don’t you think so?

Or perhaps we should imagine the bouncing of the so called rockhopper penguins; these penguins usually build their nests on quite steep rocky areas and as such they have to get there. Even funnier than the previous image, don’t you think so?

If it were for me to refer to the qualities of the male penguin I’d have to say that they are not just elegantly dressed but also good parents as well. In fact both of them, the male and the female penguin prove to be quite devoted parents. They will take turns to warm their egg and to go look for food, but even so they will not sacrifice their lives in case their partner does not come back. Instead the only life being sacrificed will be that of the baby penguin, in such cases.

In order to create the full image of these cute, adorable, intelligent creatures I shall now quote a poem entitled “In Praise of Penguins”, a poem written by Robin Bernard “These funny birds in fancy clothes / may waddle in the snow, / but when they reach the icy sea / just watch how fast they go! / Their song sounds like a donkey’s bray, / they cannot soar or fly, / yet penguins manage very well, / and let me tell you why… / Their feathers keep out water, / their blubber keeps out cold, / their wings make perfect paddles / because they do not fold! / Their tails are good for steering, / they brake with both their feet – / So tell me now, from all you’ve heard… / Aren’t penguins neat?”

Most surely they are! Elegant, cute, all dressed up as if ready to party! And apparently they manage to do just this by means of their playful activities, by means of spending most of their time swimming, by means of enjoying life to the best of it. So, should we perhaps learn from these creatures to enjoy life to its best, what do you think?