April 25th is World Penguin Day for all our furry (uh … feathery) penguin friends. Despite the Madagascar Penguins, penguins do not live on Madagascar. But natural penguins do live at the earth’s equator on the Galapagos Islands and in every continent of the southern hemisphere, especially at the edges of Antarctica. No penguins live in the northern hemisphere, including the Arctic. Sorry all you polar bears, you can’t take a penguin to lunch.

Penguins are flightless birds complete with feathers. There are 17 (some sources say 18) different species, ranging from the Little Penguin or Blue Penguin (13inches, 1-3 pounds, living 6.5 years) to the Emperor Penguin (42-51 inches, 84-90 pounds, and living 20 years).

Each penguin species is specialized for the particular environment they live in. For instance most penguin clutches (number of eggs) is 2 or 3. But the Emperor only has one egg per season due to the extreme cold of the Antarctic, they can only keep one egg alive at a time.

But unlike other birds, penguins have some non-bird characteristics. A penguin's molt is sometimes called a catastrophic molt, because unlike most birds that will molt a few feathers at a time, penguins molt all of their feathers all at once. But never in the winter. Penguin bones are solid, not hollow like other birds. But the most fascinating penguin physiology is – penguin knees!

Yes penguins have knees. They are part of fully formed legs very much like mammal legs. But the knee and upper leg is inside the body. [1]

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http://penguin.net.nz/faq/faq.html
http://mentalfloss.com/article/5641.....about-penguins
http://www.defenders.org/penguins/basic-facts
http://www.livescience.com/27434-pe.....uin-facts.html
[1] http://penguins.neaq.org/2010/07/fa.....ave-knees.html