"Take it all in all; I do not believe anybody on Earth has a worse time than an Emperor Penguin.”~~ Apsley Cherry-Garrard
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**The majority of the information provided here is courtesy of one of my favorite websites: the genius: Wikipedia.**
The Emperor Penguin is the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species and is endemic to Antarctica. The male and female are similar in plumage and size, reaching 48 inches in height and weighing anywhere from 49 to 99 lb.
They are the mack daddy of the penguins and they seem to know it. The few Emperors I have seen have been solitary, standing regally with their head held high staring out into the far horizon.
The Emperor Penguin was described in 1844 by English zoologist George Robert Gray, who created its generic name from Ancient Greek: "without-wings-diver". Its specific name is in honor of the German naturalist Johann Reinhold Forster, who accompanied Captain James Cook on his second Pacific Voyage and officially named five other penguin species.
The dorsal side and head are black and sharply delineated from the white belly, pale-yellow breast and bright-yellow ear patches. Like all penguin species, the Emperor has a streamlined body to minimize drag while swimming, and wings that have become stiff, flat flippers. The tongue is equipped with rear-facing barbs to prevent prey from escaping when caught. The Emperor Penguin's dark plumage fades to brown from November until February, before the yearly molt in January and February. Molting is rapid in this species compared with other birds, taking only around 34 days. Emperor Penguin feathers emerge from the skin after they have grown to a third of their total length, and before old feathers are lost, to help reduce heat loss. New feathers then push out the old ones before finishing their growth.
Diet:
Predators:
Are the same as the Adelie. Leopard Seals and the South Polar Skua. If one of a breeding pair of Emperors dies or is killed during the breeding season, the surviving parent must abandon its egg or young and go back to the sea to feed.
Interesting Facts:
An Emperor’s Adaptation to Cold:
The Emperor Penguin breeds in the coldest environment of any bird species; air temperatures may reach −40 °F, and wind speeds may reach 89 mph. Water temperature is a frigid 28.8 °F, which is much lower than the Emperor Penguin's average body temperature of 102 °F. The species has adapted in several ways to counteract heat loss. Feathers provide 80–90% of its insulation, and it has a layer of sub-dermal fat which may be up to 1.2 inches thick before breeding. This resultant blubber layer impedes the mobility of the Emperor on land. Its stiff feathers are short, spear-shaped, and densely packed over the entire skin surface. With around 100 feathers covering one square inch, it has the highest feather density of any bird species. An extra layer of insulation is formed by separate shafts of downy filaments between feathers and skin. Muscles allow the feathers to be held erect on land, reducing heat loss by trapping a layer of air next to the skin. Conversely, the plumage is flattened in water, thus waterproofing the skin and the downy under layer. Preening is vital in facilitating insulation and in keeping the plumage oily and water-repellent.
The Emperor Penguin is able to thermoregulate (maintain its core body temperature) without altering its metabolism, over a wide range of temperatures. Known as the thermo neutral range, this extends from 14 to 68 °F. Below this temperature range, its metabolic rate increases significantly, although an individual can maintain its core temperature from 100.4 °F down to −53 °F. Movement by swimming, walking, and shivering are three mechanisms for increasing metabolism.
Both male and female Emperor Penguins forage for food up to 311 miles from colonies while collecting food to feed chicks, covering 51–903 miles per individual per trip. A male returning to the sea after incubation heads directly out to areas of permanent open water, around 62 miles from the colony.
An efficient swimmer, the Emperor Penguin exerts pressure with both its upward and downward strokes while swimming. The upward stroke works against buoyancy and helps maintain depth. Its average swimming speed is 4–6 mph. On land, the Emperor Penguin alternates between walking with a wobbling gait and tobogganing—sliding over the ice on its belly, propelled by its feet and wing-like flippers.
As a defense against the cold, a colony of Emperor Penguins forms a compact huddle (also known as the turtle formation) ranging in size from ten to several hundred birds, with each bird leaning forward on a neighbor. Those on the outside upwind tend to shuffle slowly around the edge of the formation and add themselves to its leeward edge, producing a slow churning action, and giving each bird a turn on the inside and on the outside.
Courtship and Breeding:
The Emperor Penguin is able to breed at around three years of age, and usually commences breeding around one to three years later. The yearly reproductive cycle begins at the start of the Antarctic winter, in March and April, when all mature Emperor Penguins travel to colonial nesting areas, often walking 31 to 75 miles inland from the edge of the pack ice. The start of travel appears to be triggered by decreasing day lengths.
The penguins start courtship in March or April, when the temperature can be as low as −40 °F. A lone male gives an ecstatic display, where it stands still and places its head on its chest before inhaling and giving a courtship call for 1–2 seconds; it then moves around the colony and repeats the call. A male and female then stand face to face, with one extending its head and neck up and the other mirroring it; they both hold this posture for several minutes. Once in pairs, couples waddle around the colony together, with the female usually following the male. Before copulation, one bird bows deeply to its mate, its bill pointed close to the ground, and its mate then does the same.
Emperor Penguins are serially monogamous. They have only one mate each year, and stay faithful to that mate. However, fidelity between years is only about 15%. The narrow window of opportunity available for mating appears to be an influence, as there is a priority to mate and breed which often precludes waiting for the appearance of the previous year's partner.
The female penguin lays one 1 lb egg in May or early June; it is vaguely pear-shaped, pale greenish-white, and measures around 4¾ x 3 inches. It represents just 2.3% of its mother's body weight, making it one of the smallest eggs relative to the maternal weight in any bird species.
After laying, the mother's nutritional reserves are exhausted and she very carefully transfers the egg to the male, before immediately returning to the sea for two months to feed. The transfer of the egg can be awkward and difficult, and many couples drop the egg in the process. When this happens, the chick inside is quickly lost, as the egg cannot withstand the freezing temperatures on the icy ground. The male spends the winter incubating the egg in his brood pouch, balancing it on the tops of his feet, for 64 consecutive days until hatching. The Emperor Penguin is the only species where this behavior is observed; in all other penguin species both parents take shifts incubating. By the time the egg hatches, the male will have fasted for around 115 days since arriving at the colony. To survive the cold and winds of up to 120 mph, the males huddle together, taking turns in the middle of the huddle.
Hatching may take as long as two or three days to complete, as the shell of the egg is thick. Newly hatched chicks are covered with only a thin layer of down and entirely dependent on their parents for food and warmth. If the chick hatches before the mother's return, the father feeds it a curd-like substance composed of 59% protein and 28% lipid, which is produced by a gland in his esophagus. The young chick is brooded in what is called the guard phase, spending time balanced on its parent's feet and sheltered in the brood pouch.
The female penguin returns at any time from hatching to ten days afterwards, from mid-July to early August. She finds her mate among the hundreds of fathers by his vocal call and takes over caring for the chick, feeding it by regurgitating the food that she has stored in her stomach. The male then leaves to take his turn at sea, spending around 24 days there before returning. The parents then take turns, one brooding while the other forages at sea.
About 45–50 days after hatching, the chicks form a crèche, huddling together for warmth and protection. During this time, both parents forage at sea and return periodically to feed their chicks. A crèche may comprise up to several thousand birds densely packed together and is essential for surviving the low Antarctic temperatures.
From early November, chicks begin molting into juvenile plumage, which takes up to two months and is often not completed by the time they leave the colony; adults cease feeding them during this time. All birds make the considerably shorter trek to the sea in December or January and spend the rest of the summer feeding there.
This entire process is documented well in the documentary film: March of the Penguins. I highly recommend it. This is a film that helped inspire my goal of reaching Antarctica just to see a penguin.
The dorsal side and head are black and sharply delineated from the white belly, pale-yellow breast and bright-yellow ear patches. Like all penguin species, the Emperor has a streamlined body to minimize drag while swimming, and wings that have become stiff, flat flippers. The tongue is equipped with rear-facing barbs to prevent prey from escaping when caught. The Emperor Penguin's dark plumage fades to brown from November until February, before the yearly molt in January and February. Molting is rapid in this species compared with other birds, taking only around 34 days. Emperor Penguin feathers emerge from the skin after they have grown to a third of their total length, and before old feathers are lost, to help reduce heat loss. New feathers then push out the old ones before finishing their growth.
Diet:
- Primarily fish
- Krill
- Squid
Are the same as the Adelie. Leopard Seals and the South Polar Skua. If one of a breeding pair of Emperors dies or is killed during the breeding season, the surviving parent must abandon its egg or young and go back to the sea to feed.
Interesting Facts:
- The Emperor can remain submerged up to 18 minutes when hunting, diving to a depth of 1,755 ft.
- It has several adaptations to facilitate this, including unusually structured hemoglobin to allow it to function at low oxygen levels.
- It has solid bones to help it dive to deeper depths whereas non-diving birds have hollow bones.
- It has the ability to reduce its metabolism and shut down non-essential organ functions.
- Vocalization
- As the species has no fixed nest sites that individuals can use to locate their own partner or chick, the Emperor Penguin must rely on vocal calls alone for identification.
- It uses a complex set of calls that are critical to individual recognition between parents, offspring, and mates, displaying the widest variation in individual calls of all penguins.
- While diving, the Emperor Penguin's oxygen use is markedly reduced, as its heart rate is reduced to as low as 15-20 beats per minute and non-essential organs are shut down, thus facilitating longer dives.
- 15.7% of the weight of an Emperor Penguin egg is shell; like those of other penguin species, the shell is relatively thick, which minimizes risk of breakage.
An Emperor’s Adaptation to Cold:
The Emperor Penguin breeds in the coldest environment of any bird species; air temperatures may reach −40 °F, and wind speeds may reach 89 mph. Water temperature is a frigid 28.8 °F, which is much lower than the Emperor Penguin's average body temperature of 102 °F. The species has adapted in several ways to counteract heat loss. Feathers provide 80–90% of its insulation, and it has a layer of sub-dermal fat which may be up to 1.2 inches thick before breeding. This resultant blubber layer impedes the mobility of the Emperor on land. Its stiff feathers are short, spear-shaped, and densely packed over the entire skin surface. With around 100 feathers covering one square inch, it has the highest feather density of any bird species. An extra layer of insulation is formed by separate shafts of downy filaments between feathers and skin. Muscles allow the feathers to be held erect on land, reducing heat loss by trapping a layer of air next to the skin. Conversely, the plumage is flattened in water, thus waterproofing the skin and the downy under layer. Preening is vital in facilitating insulation and in keeping the plumage oily and water-repellent.
The Emperor Penguin is able to thermoregulate (maintain its core body temperature) without altering its metabolism, over a wide range of temperatures. Known as the thermo neutral range, this extends from 14 to 68 °F. Below this temperature range, its metabolic rate increases significantly, although an individual can maintain its core temperature from 100.4 °F down to −53 °F. Movement by swimming, walking, and shivering are three mechanisms for increasing metabolism.
Both male and female Emperor Penguins forage for food up to 311 miles from colonies while collecting food to feed chicks, covering 51–903 miles per individual per trip. A male returning to the sea after incubation heads directly out to areas of permanent open water, around 62 miles from the colony.
An efficient swimmer, the Emperor Penguin exerts pressure with both its upward and downward strokes while swimming. The upward stroke works against buoyancy and helps maintain depth. Its average swimming speed is 4–6 mph. On land, the Emperor Penguin alternates between walking with a wobbling gait and tobogganing—sliding over the ice on its belly, propelled by its feet and wing-like flippers.
As a defense against the cold, a colony of Emperor Penguins forms a compact huddle (also known as the turtle formation) ranging in size from ten to several hundred birds, with each bird leaning forward on a neighbor. Those on the outside upwind tend to shuffle slowly around the edge of the formation and add themselves to its leeward edge, producing a slow churning action, and giving each bird a turn on the inside and on the outside.
Courtship and Breeding:
The Emperor Penguin is able to breed at around three years of age, and usually commences breeding around one to three years later. The yearly reproductive cycle begins at the start of the Antarctic winter, in March and April, when all mature Emperor Penguins travel to colonial nesting areas, often walking 31 to 75 miles inland from the edge of the pack ice. The start of travel appears to be triggered by decreasing day lengths.
The penguins start courtship in March or April, when the temperature can be as low as −40 °F. A lone male gives an ecstatic display, where it stands still and places its head on its chest before inhaling and giving a courtship call for 1–2 seconds; it then moves around the colony and repeats the call. A male and female then stand face to face, with one extending its head and neck up and the other mirroring it; they both hold this posture for several minutes. Once in pairs, couples waddle around the colony together, with the female usually following the male. Before copulation, one bird bows deeply to its mate, its bill pointed close to the ground, and its mate then does the same.
Emperor Penguins are serially monogamous. They have only one mate each year, and stay faithful to that mate. However, fidelity between years is only about 15%. The narrow window of opportunity available for mating appears to be an influence, as there is a priority to mate and breed which often precludes waiting for the appearance of the previous year's partner.
The female penguin lays one 1 lb egg in May or early June; it is vaguely pear-shaped, pale greenish-white, and measures around 4¾ x 3 inches. It represents just 2.3% of its mother's body weight, making it one of the smallest eggs relative to the maternal weight in any bird species.
After laying, the mother's nutritional reserves are exhausted and she very carefully transfers the egg to the male, before immediately returning to the sea for two months to feed. The transfer of the egg can be awkward and difficult, and many couples drop the egg in the process. When this happens, the chick inside is quickly lost, as the egg cannot withstand the freezing temperatures on the icy ground. The male spends the winter incubating the egg in his brood pouch, balancing it on the tops of his feet, for 64 consecutive days until hatching. The Emperor Penguin is the only species where this behavior is observed; in all other penguin species both parents take shifts incubating. By the time the egg hatches, the male will have fasted for around 115 days since arriving at the colony. To survive the cold and winds of up to 120 mph, the males huddle together, taking turns in the middle of the huddle.
Hatching may take as long as two or three days to complete, as the shell of the egg is thick. Newly hatched chicks are covered with only a thin layer of down and entirely dependent on their parents for food and warmth. If the chick hatches before the mother's return, the father feeds it a curd-like substance composed of 59% protein and 28% lipid, which is produced by a gland in his esophagus. The young chick is brooded in what is called the guard phase, spending time balanced on its parent's feet and sheltered in the brood pouch.
The female penguin returns at any time from hatching to ten days afterwards, from mid-July to early August. She finds her mate among the hundreds of fathers by his vocal call and takes over caring for the chick, feeding it by regurgitating the food that she has stored in her stomach. The male then leaves to take his turn at sea, spending around 24 days there before returning. The parents then take turns, one brooding while the other forages at sea.
About 45–50 days after hatching, the chicks form a crèche, huddling together for warmth and protection. During this time, both parents forage at sea and return periodically to feed their chicks. A crèche may comprise up to several thousand birds densely packed together and is essential for surviving the low Antarctic temperatures.
From early November, chicks begin molting into juvenile plumage, which takes up to two months and is often not completed by the time they leave the colony; adults cease feeding them during this time. All birds make the considerably shorter trek to the sea in December or January and spend the rest of the summer feeding there.
This entire process is documented well in the documentary film: March of the Penguins. I highly recommend it. This is a film that helped inspire my goal of reaching Antarctica just to see a penguin.
Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the Antarctic explorer, summed it up pretty well in regards to the Emperor Penguin:
"Take it all in all; I do not believe anybody on Earth has a worse time than an Emperor Penguin.”
"Take it all in all; I do not believe anybody on Earth has a worse time than an Emperor Penguin.”
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