Two penguins meet every night to comfort each other. They stand for hours together watching the lights, seen in a photo that won an award
Melissa shares a picture saying this picture of the penguins has won an award in Oceanographic magazine’s Ocean Photography Awards.
“Photographer Tobias Baumgaertner captured this image of two widowed fairy penguins looking over the Melbourne skyline. It has won an award in Oceanographic magazine’s Ocean Photography Awards” she writes.
She also shares, “The lighter penguin is an elderly female whose partner died this year. The darker one is a younger male who lost his partner two years ago. Biologists have followed them as they meet every night to comfort each other. They stand for hours together watching the lights.”
The lighter penguin is an elderly female whose partner died this year. The darker one is a younger male who lost his partner two years ago. Biologists have followed them as they meet every night to comfort each other. They stand for hours together watching the lights. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/NW7vf9mkJn
— 𝑀𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑎 (@MeliMels99) November 3, 2022
Penguins are a group of aquatic flightless birds who live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is found north of the Equator. Highly adapted for life in the water, penguins have dark and white plumage and flippers for swimming. Most penguins feed on krill, fish, squid, and other forms of sea life which they catch with their bills and swallow it whole while swimming. A penguin has a spiny tongue and powerful jaws to grip slippery prey.
They spend roughly half of their lives on land and the other half in the sea.
The largest living species is the Emperor penguin on average, adults are about 3 ft 7 in tall and weigh 35 kg. The smallest penguin species is the little blue penguin (Eudyptula minor), also known as the fairy penguin, which stands around 30–33 cm tall and weighs 1.2–1.3 kg
Today, larger penguins generally inhabit colder regions, and smaller penguins inhabit regions with temperate or tropical climates. Some prehistoric penguin species were enormous: as tall or heavy as an adult human. There was a great diversity of species in subantarctic regions, and at least one giant species in a region around 2,000 km south of the equator 35 mya, during the Late Eocene, a climate warmer than today. They have a lifespan of around 20 years.