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King Penguin — printable fact sheet
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King Penguin
Aptenodytes patagonicus
Aptenodytes patagonicus has the longest and strangest breeding cycle of any bird: chick-rearing takes 14 to 16 months, which is so long that a pair cannot fit two broods into two years and instead breeds successfully only twice every three years. The chick hatches in summer, is …
Did you know?
- Unlike most birds, King Penguin chicks take over a year to fledge and are cared for by their parents through the harsh winter.
- Parents find their own chick in a colony of a hundred thousand purely by voice, using a two-voice call produced by both halves of the syrinx at once, which the chick can pick out of the din in seconds. Because they carry the egg on their feet rather than in a nest, kings are effectively mobile incubators and can shuffle away from a threat without abandoning the egg. The fasting winter chicks survive on stored fat and are among the most extreme fasters of any young bird.
What I learned
Draw the king penguin
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