Penguins: The Monogamous Tuxedoed Birds That 'Fly' Underwater

There are up to 26 different species of penguins. In the wild, they all live in the Southern Hemisphere on four continents – Africa, South America, Australia/New Zealand and Antarctica, typically places where the water is very cold. There is an exception. The endangered Galapagos penguin lives in the Galapagos archipelago, which is right on the equator.

African penguins have incredibly small feathers and there are lots of them – about 8,200 feathers per square inch! That number will vary according to penguin species and size.

"Their feathers act like a barrier to the water they're swimming in," says O'Dell. "The feathers are important to their survival because they're swimming in really cold water. If they didn't have that barrier they wouldn't survive."

In addition to the density of the feathers, penguins also use oil from a uropygial gland, sometimes called a preen gland, located at the base of their tail, to preen or waterproof their feathers. "When they're swimming in the ocean, no water ever touches their skin," says O'Dell.

Most penguins will breed monogamously for life and return to the same breeding place. However, O'Dell says she and other researchers have seen mated pairs split up and form new pairs for no discernable reason. African penguins breed year-round with peak times in November and March. They typically lay two eggs that are incubated for about 40 days. Males and females are both engaged in incubating, tending and feeding the chicks after they hatch.

Most penguins do not balance the eggs on the tops of their feet while incubating their eggs, as seen in the movie "The March of the Penguins." That's something done primarily by Emperor penguins because of the brutal Antarctic cold. Other penguin species may build a burrow or scrape together nesting material – rocks, mud, sticks or grasses – where they lay their eggs.

Imagine having to go through an annual life cycle where you double your weight, lose all the hair on your body and then grow new hair. That's what penguins do every year.

"The catastrophic molt is a two-and-a-half-week process during which they lose all their feathers and grow new ones back," says O'Dell. "It's a natural thing they go through but it is physiologically stressful. In advance of molting, they will come close to doubling their body weight because they won't swim or hunt. That way, during that time when they're losing the feathers and growing them back, they've got enough reserves to get them through."

O'Dell says molting typically happens around the same season each year for African penguins, with some outliers. "You can probably find a molting penguin at any time of the year," she says, "But the majority will molt with the rest of the flock."

Handlers at the Georgia Aquarium occasionally wanted their African penguins to take part in educational or interactive programs but they weren't sure how well they would take to instruction. Turns out penguins are pretty smart cookies. "When we started incorporating a more formalized training program with them, they learned incredibly fast," says O'Dell. "Like most animals they are responsive to operant conditioning and positive reinforcement. The way they respond to people has a lot to do with their history, where they came from, their interaction here and the training process." O'Dell says that like other animals, including many species of birds, penguins can form strong attachments to specific trainers.

With so many penguin species, the conservation status runs the gamut from those that are of "least concern" like the Adelie and the "vulnerable" Macaroni which live and breed in Antarctic waters, to "endangered" Northern Rockhopper penguins, found in the more temperate South Atlantic and Indian Oceans, on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.

African penguins are also endangered on the IUCN Red List. "Their numbers have decreased 90 percent over the last 100 years," says O'Dell. "There are only 16,000 breeding pairs left. There's speculation that this species of penguin could be extinct within our lifetime, possibly in the next 15 to 20 years without significant changes."

The problems are mostly man-made. In addition to competing with humans for the same fish, O'Dell says their prey has also moved. "The penguins have to swim farther to get food and by the time they get back to their chicks, they've digested everything," she says. "They don't have anything to feed their young."

"Georgia Aquarium has committed to the species in a lot of different ways. There are people from our team, from vet services, who support the South African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) to help with rescue, rehab and release of African penguins and other seabird species, and fund research projects to get the African penguin population growing in the right direction again."