INTERESTING PENGUIN FACTS

Daphne Bramham is travelling as a guest of One Ocean Expeditions, which has neither approved nor reviewed her stories.

Here’s everything you need to know about penguins:

Penguins’ primary food source is krill. Krill stocks are being depleted by the loss of sea ice due to climate change and by fishing.

Although they’re carnivores, penguins have no teeth. Instead, their tongues and throats have spines to prevent food from slipping from their mouths.

Each penguin’s voice is unique, which allows them to recognize one another.

The most northerly species is the Galapagos penguin. Its population has declined by more than 50 per cent since the 1970s.

They can’t fly. In 1620, French explorer Admiral Augustin de Beaulieu described them as “feathered fish.”

The fastest penguins — gentoos — can swim underwater at top speeds of 35 kilometres per hour. Most average six to 11 km/h.

Penguins’ bones are denser than flying birds, allowing them to float and also plunge to moderate depths.

Penguins get rid of the excess salt in their bodies by sneezing or excreting it through their bills.

Penguin colonies can have populations of up to 20 million.

The oldest penguin fossil found is 61.6 million years old. Those penguins were up to 1.3 metres tall and appeared nearly five million years after the mass extinction that killed dinosaurs.

A bunch of penguins on land is called “a waddle.” A group in the water is called “a raft.”

World Penguin Day is April 25.