“Penguins cannot fly, but they swim as well as many fish.”
Penguins are flightless seabirds of the Southern Hemisphere, ranging from Antarctic ice to the Galápagos. Built to swim rather than fly, they chase fish, krill, and squid underwater and breed in dense colonies.
By An Nguyen · Published · Updated
SpheniscidaeSphenisciformesSpheniscidae
Browse images of penguin across habitat, behavior, anatomy, and life stages, including a range map of the penguin family.
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Core article
A closer look at habitat, diet, behavior, reproduction, and conservation.
Penguins are flightless seabirds whose wings evolved into stiff flippers for swimming rather than flying. They cannot take to the air, but their streamlined bodies and dense bones let them chase fish, krill, and squid underwater with speed and control. One popular idea is worth correcting up front: penguins do not live at the North Pole. Every wild penguin species lives in the Southern Hemisphere, and most do not live in Antarctica at all.
Penguins range across the Southern Hemisphere — Antarctica, South America, southern Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and even the equatorial Galápagos Islands — but never the Arctic. Cold tolerance varies enormously across the family: emperor penguins breed on Antarctic sea ice, while Galápagos penguins live at the equator. They spend up to 80% of their lives at sea but must return to land or stable ice to molt, breed, and raise chicks. Their distribution follows food, clustering where nutrient-rich currents such as the Humboldt and Benguela drive dense shoals of prey.
A penguin's body is fusiform — torpedo-shaped — to cut drag underwater. Where flying birds have light, hollow bones, penguins have heavy, solid ones that act as ballast for diving, and wings reshaped into rigid flippers driven by large chest muscles that push them to around 22 mph. On land they stand upright, using webbed feet and a stiff tail as a tripod. Insulation is layered: blubber beneath the skin, and dense overlapping feathers — up to about 100 per square inch — kept waterproof with oil from the uropygial gland. Countershading (dark back, white belly) hides them from predators above and below, and salt glands above the eyes let them drink seawater by excreting the excess salt.
Penguins are marine carnivores, mostly mid-level predators, taking small schooling fish, krill, and squid depending on species and location. They hunt by sight, with eyes adapted to dim underwater light, and backward-facing spines in the mouth and throat keep slippery prey from escaping. To breathe while travelling fast they "porpoise," leaping clear of the surface in arcs. Diving ability ranges widely, topping out with the emperor penguin, which can dive beyond 1,500 feet and stay under for more than 20 minutes.
Scientists recognise roughly 17 to 19 penguin species across several genera, and they span a striking range of size and climate:
| Species | Height | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| Emperor penguin | up to ~4.3 ft (130 cm) | Antarctica |
| King penguin | ~3 ft (85–95 cm) | subantarctic islands |
| Galápagos penguin | ~19 in (49 cm) | the equator (Galápagos) |
| Little blue penguin | ~16 in (40 cm) | Australia and New Zealand |
The largest lives on Antarctic ice; the smallest and the most tropical live far from any ice at all — a reminder that "penguin" covers much more than the Antarctic stereotype.
Most penguins breed in colonies ranging from a few hundred pairs to hundreds of thousands, recognising mates and chicks by species-specific calls and displays amid the crowd. Nesting together dilutes each bird's risk from aerial predators such as skuas and giant petrels. In the Antarctic winter, male emperor penguins take colony living to an extreme, packing into dense huddles and slowly rotating so each bird cycles between the cold rim and the warm interior while incubating in temperatures that can reach −76°F (−60°C). Mutual preening keeps feathers waterproof and reinforces pair bonds.
Penguins invest heavily in few young and are often seasonally monogamous. Most lay one or two eggs in a nest of rocks, pebbles, or guano — though emperors use no nest at all, balancing the egg on their feet. Incubation lasts one to two months, and in most species both parents share it, one fasting on the egg while the other forages at sea, sometimes hundreds of miles away, before they swap. After hatching, parents alternate trips and feed the chick regurgitated fish or krill; as chicks grow, many species gather into communal crèches while adults hunt, then molt into waterproof juvenile feathers before entering the sea. Many penguins live 15 to 20 years in the wild.
Penguins face escalating threats, and while the family overall is often summarised as Near Threatened, several species are Endangered and declining. The pressures differ by region. In Antarctica, ocean warming and shifting sea ice can change krill supplies and remove the ice that emperor and Adélie penguins breed on. In subantarctic and temperate zones, commercial fishing competes for prey and kills birds as bycatch, oil spills destroy feather insulation, and coastal development plus introduced predators — foxes, rats, feral cats — hit nesting colonies. Because the family is so spread out, penguin conservation is really many local problems rather than one.
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Chordata
Class
Aves
Order
Sphenisciformes
Family
Spheniscidae
Genus
Various
Species
Multiple species
Penguins cannot fly, but they swim as well as many fish.
Emperor penguins breed during the harsh Antarctic winter.
A group of penguins in the water is called a raft.
Penguins have special glands that remove salt from seawater.
Some penguin colonies hold tens of thousands of nesting birds.
Penguins leap out of the water onto ice in a move called porpoising.
Select a question to reveal the answer.
A penguin is a flightless seabird that lives in the Southern Hemisphere. Penguins have flipper-like wings, waterproof feathers, and strong legs for walking on land and ice.
No. Penguins lost the ability to fly long ago. Their wings became stiff flippers that push them fast through ocean water instead.
Almost all penguins live in the Southern Hemisphere, from Antarctica to South America, Africa, Australia, and nearby islands. The Galápagos penguin lives near the equator.
Penguins are carnivores that eat fish, krill, and squid. They catch prey by diving and chasing underwater.
Many penguins swim about 4 to 7 mph during normal travel. In short bursts, some species can reach around 22 mph underwater.
Yes. Most penguin species nest in large colonies where thousands of birds may gather. Parents take turns guarding chicks and finding food.
A baby penguin is called a chick. Chicks hatch from eggs and depend on their parents for warmth and food.
Their dark backs blend with deep water when seen from above. Their white fronts match bright sky when seen from below, helping them hide from predators and prey.
It depends on the species. Some, like the emperor penguin, are Near Threatened. Others, like the African penguin, are Endangered because of fishing, pollution, and habitat loss.
Emperor penguins have thick feathers and a layer of fat. They also huddle together in tight groups and take turns standing in the warm center of the huddle.
Most penguins live about 15 to 20 years in the wild, though it varies by species. Larger species such as the emperor penguin tend to live longer, and the first year of life is the hardest for chicks to survive.
Yes, penguins are carnivores. They catch fish, krill, squid, and other small marine animals underwater rather than eating plants on land.
Penguin predators include leopard seals and orcas at sea, plus skuas and giant petrels around nesting colonies. The exact predator set varies by penguin species and region.
No, most penguin species live outside Antarctica. Penguins also breed in South America, southern Africa, Australia, New Zealand, subantarctic islands, and the Galápagos near the equator.
Yes, penguins have short, stiff tails. The feathers can brace the body while a penguin stands or rests, especially in species that spend long periods upright on land or ice.
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