Everyone has seen the "Madagascar" series, and the ones who impressed me the most in the movie were not the protagonists lions, zebras, hippos and giraffes, nor the dancing lemur king Julian XIII, but the lowly penguin agent foursome.
Some friends asked Wanderer after watching this movie: Madagascar, is there really a penguin?
How to say it, I think these friends did not watch the movie carefully, the penguin quartet in the movie is actually hijacking a human ship to come to Madagascar. But from another point of view, in Madagascar, Africa, will there be penguins living?
Madagascar does not have wild penguins.
This answer is logically over. But I noticed that many people's interpretation of all the penguins in Madagascar is wrong - "penguins live in Antarctica, madagascar is near the Tropic of Cancer, how can there be penguins?" ”
So I think it's necessary to nag a few words and try to correct an inherently erroneous impression that penguins do not only live in Antarctica, the temperate zone near the Tropic of Cancer, even the tropics north of the Tropic of Cancer, and even in the northern hemisphere north of the equator, there are wild penguins, and it is untenable to explain why there are no penguins in Madagascar only from the geographical point of view.
Penguin distribution map, you can see that penguins are distributed in many other areas except Antarctica, and many places with the same latitude (or even further north) as Madagascar are also inhabited
Penguins live in antarctica - this is a "common sense" that even kindergarten children know today, this "common sense" began in the late 18th century European explorers on the legendary "southern continent" of continuous exploration, to the 19th century, people finally discovered the Antarctic, and saw hundreds of thousands of penguins in the Antarctic, since then, penguins have become the mascot of Antarctica, just as when it comes to polar bears people think of the Arctic.
However, the penguin's "Antarctic" symbol did not exist at the beginning. Penguins have been seen before humans have discovered Antarctica. In 1488, some Portuguese sailors first spotted penguins near the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa (of course, the native natives around the Cape of Good Hope must have seen penguins earlier), and these sailors left detailed records for this, and we have no way of knowing which penguin it was. Judging from the location of the discovery, it is likely that the Portuguese sailors found Spheniscus demersus, which lived on the southern coast of Africa all year round.
It is likely to be the first penguin known to the modern world, the African penguin, which lived mainly in the southern waters of Africa
In 1519, Magellan led a fleet south along the east coast of South America, near present-day Patagonia, Argentina, and also encountered some penguins, and the historian Pigafita left the first written record of penguins in human history, and named the penguins "Unknown Geese". This penguin is now known as the Spheniscus magellanicus, because this penguin has a prominent circle of white ring feathers around its neck, so it is also known as the Mai's ring penguin.
The penguin, the magellan penguin, is the first written record in human history, which is mainly distributed in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans in southern South America
By 1781, the German John. Reinhold. Foster discovered another penguin in southern Australia, the smallest penguin we find today, the Little Blue Penguin, which is also the prototype of the Linux system mascot TUX, and it is said that the father of Linux, Linus Torvaltz, was bitten by a small blue penguin while on vacation in Australia, and suddenly wanted to use this penguin as a mascot.
The smallest penguin, the Little Blue Penguin, is mainly found along the southern coasts of Australia and New Zealand
Therefore, in the two or three hundred years when humans first knew about penguins, penguins were always considered to be an ordinary water bird living in temperate waters of the southern hemisphere, and did not associate it with the icy Antarctica, until the discovery of the Antarctic continent, it was realized that penguins can actually survive in Antarctica. In modern times, penguins have gradually become the symbol of Antarctica, and even many people have forgotten the fact that there are penguins outside the Antarctic.
So why are penguins also found in Africa, South America and Australia? Can penguins withstand the scorching heat of Africa?
In fact, this is the cause of ocean currents, in the southwest corner of Africa and the surrounding waters of Australia, there are strong cold currents, cold currents cause the water temperature in these areas to be significantly lower than in the same latitude, penguins live in these places, so as not to be extremely hot.
The most exaggerated is the Peruvian cold current, the world's most powerful cold current from the Antarctic sea along the west coast of South America all the way north, and even affected near the equator, it is by relying on the nourishment of the Peruvian Ocean Current, Humboldt penguins can live widely in Chile and Peruvian waters, and galapagus penguins are camped in the Galapagus islands near the equator, and even dozens of them live in the northern equator, becoming the only penguin living in the northern hemisphere.
The only penguin that lives in the northern hemisphere, the Galapagus penguin, inhabits the Galapagos Archipelago, the birthplace of Darwin's theory of evolution
Why do penguins live in Peru and Galapagos, but there are no pennies in Madagascar, closer to Antarctica? We can see that near the island of Madagascar, there are two warm currents working together, but there is no strong cold current, and Madagascar is indeed a little hot for the existing penguins.
Despite this, we still dare not say it to death, and the existing penguins are more afraid of heat, but the ancient penguins are not necessarily so. In 2007, scientists found a fossil of an ancient penguin in Peru, according to the study, this huge penguin named perudyptes was widely distributed in the sea near the equator as early as 42 million years ago, some scholars believe that in the long evolutionary path of the penguin family, it is likely to evolve penguins with less fat and thinner fur, these penguins are more suitable for life in hot areas, for reasons we do not know, these penguins have become extinct, if they survive to this day, We may be able to see real tropical penguins in Madagascar.