Penguins Go MONTHS Without Feeding! | Wild Bites | BBC Earth Kids

There are around 20 species of penguin in the world, ranging from the littlest, which is shorter than a bowling pin at 30 centimetres from head to toe, through to the iconic emperor penguin, which grows to four feet tall. That's high enough to look over a tennis net without even standing on tiptoes. These birds are seriously well adapted to life in the ocean, where they are masters of their environment. But out of the water, they're, um, not quite so masterful. In this video, we're going to meet some of our favourite clumsy feathered friends. And we're going to find out lots of amazing facts about these seriously chilled birds. Wild Bites. Penguins. Everyone knows most penguins like to keep cool. But they don't all come from the South Pole. You can actually find penguins in some really hot places too, like Australia, Africa, and even in the Galapagos Islands, right on the equator. One place you'll never find penguins is the North Pole. So penguins and polar bears don't ever cross paths, except on Christmas cards. It may also surprise you that penguins can fly. Well, kind of, they just can't do it in the air. But when you see them underwater, you can see that they aren't so clumsy after all. Their wings become flippers, and their streamlined bodies become just like torpedoes, so they can truly fly through the water. Like other birds, penguins are also covered with feathers. But their feathers have evolved to form a very dense layer of insulation to keep them nice and toasty, just like a wetsuit. But why do penguins have bare feet? Well, because their bodies are kept so warm by their feathers and a layer of fatty blubber too, the circulation in their feet is used to keep them from burning up. If they're too hot, they pump blood into their feet to cool down, and if they're too cold, they send just enough blood to their feet to stop them from freezing. Clever, eh? Despite living in a freezer, penguins prefer to eat fresh food. They love fish, but they also eat squid, crabs, and tiny little shrimps called krill too. When penguins are at sea, they can travel huge distances looking for food. But like all birds, they have to lay eggs to have babies, and they can't do that in the ocean. All penguins breed in colonies called rookeries, and some of them can be massive and very stinky too. Penguin poo is called guano, and there's no shortage of that around here. The biggest penguin rookeries are found around the Antarctic, and some are home to hundreds of thousands of birds. But with so many mouths to feed, penguins often have to travel up to 900 miles looking for food for their ridiculously cute chicks. That's like travelling the length of the United Kingdom just to pick up dinner. But nothing compares to the dedication of these emperor penguins, which breed in one of the most extreme places on Earth, the Antarctic ice shelf. Some will walk up to 75 miles from the open water just to find the colony. And when they get tired of walking, they toboggan on their bellies. The female lays just one egg and transfers it straight away to the male, who incubates it on his feet while mum goes back to the ocean to feed. These poor penguins have to endure one of the coldest places on Earth, where the temperature drops to minus 40 degrees centigrade. To keep warm, they form a cosy huddle, where they constantly trudge around to stop themselves from freezing. They even rotate so nobody gets stuck on the outside for too long. When the female eventually comes back two months later, the male will not have eaten for 120 days and will have lost half of his body weight. Mum then takes over caring for the newly hatched chick and dad can at last go get some food. He's weak with hunger so he must be careful, especially when he returns to the water, which is home to leopard seals and killer whales, both of which have a taste for penguins. But there is a much greater danger to the survival of these endearing birds. Climate change is putting penguins in peril. In 2016, the world's second largest emperor penguin colony was wiped out after an ice shelf in Antarctica collapsed. This was a devastating blow for one of the world's most lovable animals. Acting to reduce carbon emissions to protect our polar regions will mean that these penguins can always have a seriously cool place to live.