Emperor Penguin

Lore & Background

Emperor penguins were described in 1844 by English zoologist George Robert Gray, who created the generic name from Ancient Greek word elements, ἀ-πτηνο-δύτης [a-ptēno-dytēs], 'without-wings-diver'. Its specific name is in honour of the German naturalist Johann Reinhold Forster, who accompanied Captain James Cook on his second voyage and officially named five other penguin species. Forster may have been the first person to see emperor penguins in 1773–74, when he recorded a sighting of what he believed was the similar king penguin (A. patagonicus) but, given the location, may very well have been the emperor penguin (A. forsteri). Together with the king penguin, the emperor penguin is one of two extant species in the genus Aptenodytes. Fossil evidence of a third species—Ridgen's penguin (A. ridgeni)—has been found from the late Pliocene, about three million years ago, in New Zealand. Studies of penguin behaviour and genetics have proposed that the genus Aptenodytes is basal; mitochondrial and nuclear DNA evidence suggests this split occurred around 40 million years ago.

In Their Own Story

By the early 1920s, the king penguin population in South Georgia and the Falklands was nearly wiped out by whalers based on these islands. Constant fires were required to boil whale blubber for extraction of the oil. As the Falklands and South Georgia had no trees to use for firewood, the whalers burned millions of oily, blubber-rich penguins as fuel. The whalers also used penguin oil for lamps, heating and cooking, in addition to eating the birds and their eggs. One of the largest known king penguin colonies, on Île aux Cochons in the Crozet Islands, experienced a massive drop in its population over the last few decades, from about half a million breeding pairs in the 1980s to about 60,000 breeding pairs in 2017.

Reader's Guide

The only penguin species that breeds during the Antarctic winter, emperor penguins trek 50–120 km (31–75 mi) over the ice to breeding colonies which can contain up to several thousand individuals. The female lays a single egg, which is incubated for just over two months by the male while the female returns to the sea to feed; parents subsequently take turns foraging at sea and caring for their chick in the colony. The lifespan of an emperor penguin is typically 20 years in the wild, although observations suggest that some individuals may live as long as 50 years. Its diet consists primarily of fish, but also includes crustaceans, such as krill, and cephalopods, such as squid. While hunting, the species can remain submerged around 20 minutes, diving to a depth of 535 m (1,755 ft). It has several adaptations to facilitate this, including an unusually structured haemoglobin to allow it to function at low oxygen levels, solid bones that reduce barotrauma, and the ability to reduce its metabolism and shut down non-essential organ functions.

Did You Know?

• The emperor penguin is the only penguin species that breeds during the Antarctic winter.
• Male emperors can lose around 12 kg (26 lb) while incubating the egg and eating nothing for over two months.
• Emperor penguins can dive to a depth of 535 m (1,755 ft) and remain submerged for about 20 minutes.
• The species uses two frequency bands simultaneously when vocalizing, displaying the widest variation in individual calls of all penguin species.