10 Amazing Facts About King Penguins

King Penguins are beautiful birds! They are easily identified by their striking colors and vocal sounds. King Penguins are strong divers and swimmers. They love to move around the ocean and hatch adorable baby chicks! You’re sure to love the King Penguin!

10 Amazing Facts About King Penguins

1. King Penguins are easily identified by their beautiful orange colors.

King Penguins are grey and white penguins with a bright orange pattern on their bill. They also have a bright orange patch on the side of their head, as well as orange and yellow coloring just below their bills.

2. King Penguins live in the ocean.

These penguins reside in the Southern Atlantic, southern Indian, and southwestern Pacific oceans, on sub-Antarctic islands. They are very widely dispersed!

3. The King Penguin has a marine and island habitat.

When breeding, King Penguins find flattish beaches that have no snow or ice. They like beaches with easy access to the sea.

4. King Penguins love to move!

When they get hungry, King Penguins take long trips out to sea to forage for food. They usually travel about 471km away from their islands, but a few wandering penguins have been spotted as far as Rio de Janeiro!

5. The King Penguin’s favorite food is fish.

The King Penguin is a seafood lover! They eat mostly fish, especially lanternfish. King Penguins also like to eat squid. Do you think the lanternfish have real lights?

6. King Penguins are great divers.

To catch their prey, King Penguins use pursuit-diving. They swim up to 12 km an hour and dive to depths of about 50 m. They fish both day and night, but they dive deeper during the daylight hours.

7. The King Penguin uses a contact call.

To contact each other, King Penguins use repeating, single, trumpeting notes. To show off, they use faster trumpeting noises. Female penguins have higher-pitched sounds than males.

8. King Penguins don’t have a set time to breed.

While most King Penguins breed from November to April, immature birds, molting birds, mating birds, birds laying eggs, and chicks have all been seen at the same time on some islands! That must be a fun variety of penguins!

9. King Penguins don’t build nests.

Unlike some other penguins, King Penguins don’t build nests for their eggs. Once eggs hatch, the chicks have pale grey feathers which eventually turn dark brown. Baby King Penguins become adults between 5-7 years of age.

10. There are lots of King Penguins in the world!

King Penguins are not globally threatened, which means they are nowhere near becoming extinct! Right now there are about 1 million breeding pairs of King Penguins.

Ornithology

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