Penguin biography is brief

The wingless Gagarka, outwardly very similar to Penguin, inhabited the Atlantic coast of Europe, North America and Iceland. In the middle of the 19th century, it was completely exterminated for delicious meat. The drawing of J. Lodge from the book "Birds", year. Photo by N. The largest - imperial - penguins live in Antarctica. Parents touchingly care about their offspring. Photos of Yu.

And the wings of this bird are special, not bending. They are elastic fins covered with short feathers that overlap one another like scales. During swimming, the wings are made to movements per minute. It is very difficult to do it in water. And the penguin is the only bird that knows how to walk in small steps and at the same time keep the body in an upright position.

Penguin in this helps short thick legs, located far behind the center of gravity of the body, membranous paws and a short tail of feathers, which serves as a kind of steering wheel. If the penguin needs to move quickly, he lies on the belly and slides, like on a sleigh, pushing away from the snow with swallowed wings and legs. Many events in the history of navigation and research of the South Ocean are connected with the penguins.

The first of the Europeans saw them off the southern coast of Africa, as here, in the photo, the sailors of the Vasco da Gama expedition-it was in the year, and in the Penguins, participants in the Magellan expedition met the southeastern coast of South America.

It is curious that they compared unusual birds with geese. The penguins, more precisely, Pin -Uings from the English PIN - a hairpin and wing - they were named one of the versions at the end of the 16th century British sailors who took unusual birds for Gagarik. The Gagar, like the penguins, also had white chest and stomach, dark back and head, they did not know how to fly and had wings in the form of small fins instead of fins.

Under the “penguin” name, gaggas also appear in the scientific literature - Pinquinus impennis. At the end of the XVIII century, so that there was no confusion, the French naturalist Bufffon proposed to call the southern birds manshs, which corresponded to the concept of “clumsy”. But in the middle of the 19th century, the Gagars were exterminated and this division became unnecessary.

Penguins appeared on Earth for a very long time: about 60 million years ago, and possibly earlier. Now the species of these birds live. All of them are building nests on the islands and the coast of the Southern Hemisphere, and Galapagos Penguin lives at the equator and even in the Northern Hemisphere. In Antarctica, on the mainland itself, only two types of Penguin nest: the largest of the living - the imperial reaches the height of SM and Penguin Adeli, bearing the name of the wife of the head of the French Antarctic expedition, who conducted research in the 10s of the last century.

Each female has only one egg. Carefully, from paws to the paw, she passes it to the male, you can’t put it on the snow - it will be hastened. The male picks up an egg and, after mandatory ceremonies, he bows, waves his wings, shakes his tail lowers his pocket - a fold of skin between the paws and the belly. For two months, the dad with an egg will be nursed, and when the long -awaited chick appears, it feeds it with “bird” milk - a special juice that develops his stomach and esophagus.

A few months later, the female returns from traveling to the sea. The chick is immediately transplanted to his mother’s paws, climbs in a down pocket and feeds for 2-3 weeks with half -digested foods that she got during the trip. The grown five -eater chick first steps on the snow and, picking, immediately goes to the Penguin "Kindergarten". Having tightly strayed into a heap, chicks warm each other.

Their paws are almost icy, their temperature is only slightly above zero. The ice is not melting under them, and therefore they do not freeze to him. Adult penguins surround babies from all sides to protect them from wind and dangers. Five -month -old penguin in parental care no longer needs. Spring comes, and then summer, the ice undermines, and the penguins, along with adult penguins, go to the open sea.

The chicks begins an independent adult life. Read at any time.