“Emperor penguins are the only birds that breed during the Antarctic winter.”
The emperor penguin is the tallest and heaviest living penguin. This Antarctic carnivore breeds on polar sea ice, hunts fish, krill, and squid, and huddles through winter storms while incubating a single egg.
By An Nguyen · Published · Updated
Aptenodytes forsteriSphenisciformesSpheniscidae
Explore emperor penguin photos of polar habitat, chicks, colonies, and Southern Ocean life.
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Core article
A closer look at habitat, diet, behavior, reproduction, and conservation.
The emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) is the tallest and heaviest living penguin, and the only bird that breeds during the Antarctic winter. While temperate penguin species nest on rocky shores in mild seasons, emperors raise a chick on frozen sea ice far from open water, through months of darkness, wind, and temperatures that would kill most warm-blooded animals. It is also one of the deepest-diving birds in the world.
Emperors are strict marine carnivores that feed on fish (often Antarctic silverfish), krill, and squid. To reach that prey they are endurance divers on a scale no other bird matches: recorded dives exceed 1,500 feet (about 500 m) and breath-holds can last more than 20 minutes. Dense bones reduce buoyancy so diving costs less effort, and a sharp bill with backward-facing spines inside the mouth grips slippery prey.
Adults commute long distances between the colony and open water, walking or tobogganing across the ice before plunging in. After a foraging trip a parent carries a full stomach back to the chick and regurgitates the meal. The same dives that feed them expose them to leopard seals and orcas waiting at the ice edge.
Adults stand about 3.5 to 4.3 feet (110 to 130 cm) and weigh roughly 50 to 100 pounds (22 to 45 kg), with males and females looking alike apart from condition. Dense, overlapping feathers oiled by the uropygial gland form a waterproof shell over a thick blubber layer that both insulates and stores the energy needed for long fasts. Rigid flippers driven by large chest muscles power swimming, short sturdy feet handle walking and tobogganing, and salt glands above the eyes shed the excess salt taken in with seawater and prey. Countershaded plumage — dark above, pale below — hides a swimming bird from predators and prey alike.
Emperor penguins occur only in Antarctica and the surrounding Southern Ocean, never in the north. Their habitat is polar sea ice: stable "fast ice" that anchors the colony, pack-ice edges along foraging routes, and cold, productive water full of fish and krill. Colonies return to predictable coastal sites, but ice is not the same year to year — if the fast ice breaks up too early, chicks that have not yet grown waterproof feathers can drown or starve. Adult foraging ranges reach far into Southern Ocean waters shared with surface hunters such as the wandering albatross.
Emperor penguins are intensely social when breeding, and their signature behavior is the huddle. Thousands of birds pack together to share body heat and continually rotate, so individuals exposed on the windward edge gradually shuffle inward to the warmer core and back out again. This rotating huddle is a group survival strategy — an incubating male could not last the winter alone.
In the crush of a colony, adults find their mate and chick mainly by voice, each bird recognizing a specific vocal signature amid the noise. Outside the breeding season, adults disperse across pack ice and open water to feed and molt.
Emperor breeding runs backward compared with most birds. As the austral autumn cools, adults walk inland onto stable ice and pair up. The female lays a single egg, transfers it carefully onto the male's feet, and returns to sea to feed. The male then incubates the egg beneath a fold of skin, the brood pouch, for about two months of deep winter — standing through storms and darkness and eating nothing, living entirely on stored fat, often losing much of his body weight.
The female returns around hatching with food, and the pair share feeding after that. Chicks bunch into crèches for warmth as they grow, then molt into waterproof feathers and head for the sea. Emperors mature after several years and commonly live 15 to 20 years if they survive their first hazardous seasons.
Only two penguins carry their egg on their feet like this, both in the genus Aptenodytes:
| Feature | Emperor penguin | King penguin |
|---|---|---|
| Height | 3.5–4.3 ft (110–130 cm) | ~2.9–3.3 ft (85–95 cm) |
| Weight | 50–100 lb (22–45 kg) | ~24–40 lb (11–16 kg) |
| Breeds on | Antarctic fast sea ice | ice-free subantarctic islands |
| Breeding timing | through the Antarctic winter | warmer months, over a long cycle |
| IUCN status | Endangered | Least Concern |
The emperor penguin was uplisted to Endangered on the IUCN Red List in 2026. The central threat is the loss and instability of sea ice: when the fast ice a colony depends on breaks up early, the breeding platform collapses before chicks can fledge, and long-term projections show steep declines this century without major cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions.
Warming also ripples through the food web, changing krill and fish availability, and local disturbance and fisheries competition add pressure. Because the species relies on ice conditions across many separate colonies, its future depends on global climate policy alongside Antarctic Treaty protections near breeding sites — emperor recovery is tied to the health of the whole polar system, not to any single colony.
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Chordata
Class
Aves
Order
Sphenisciformes
Family
Spheniscidae
Genus
Aptenodytes
Species
A. forsteri
Emperor penguins are the only birds that breed during the Antarctic winter.
Males can fast for more than two months while incubating the egg.
They can dive deeper than 1,500 feet and hold their breath for over 20 minutes.
Huddles of thousands of birds shuffle so outer birds get turns in the warm center.
Unlike most penguins, emperors do not build nests of rocks or burrows.
Chicks wear grayish down before molting into waterproof juvenile plumage.
Select a question to reveal the answer.
The emperor penguin (*Aptenodytes forsteri*) is the tallest and heaviest living penguin. It is a flightless seabird in the family Spheniscidae that lives only around Antarctica.
They live exclusively in Antarctica and nearby pack ice. Breeding colonies form on stable sea ice along the Antarctic coast; the species never nests in the Arctic.
Emperor penguins are carnivores. They hunt fish (including Antarctic silverfish), krill, and squid during long underwater dives in the Southern Ocean.
Adults usually stand about 3.5 to 4.3 feet (roughly 110 to 130 cm) tall and weigh about 50 to 100 pounds (22 to 45 kg), with males often heavier before the long winter fast.
Emperors breed on Antarctic sea ice in winter and are larger. King penguins (*Aptenodytes patagonicus*) are smaller, nest on subantarctic islands, and keep bright orange ear patches that look different up close.
Yes. The IUCN Red List moved the emperor penguin from Near Threatened to Endangered in 2026 because of projected declines driven by climate-linked sea-ice loss.
They rely on dense feathers, a thick fat layer, and cooperative huddling. Birds circulate from the cold rim of the huddle into the warmer center during polar storms.
A baby emperor penguin is called a chick. Each pair usually raises one chick, which is fed regurgitated food by both parents after the female returns from foraging.
No rock or burrow nest is used. The single egg sits on a parent's feet and is covered by a warm brood pouch of feathered skin until it hatches.
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