Penguins should be one of the cutest animals in the world, and their chubby bodies, walking and swaying, are very distinctive! And the emperor penguin's excellent temperament, you will fall in love with these penguins the first time you see them, even if they are in the breeding grounds!
Penguins are not afraid of heat, why are they not present in the Arctic?
Penguins are a very strange animal, remember there is a very funny question, if there are only fossils, can archaeologists restore the shape of penguins? The answers are varied, one of which is that if the climate form at that time is found in the fossil layer, then it seems that it can be restored to eight or nine, but if only by fossil restoration, it is estimated that the difference with the current penguin is a bit large!
Penguin skeletons that "spread their wings and fly"
At present, there are 19 species of penguins in the world, most of which live in Antarctica and surrounding areas, such as the emperor penguin and the Adélie penguin that are often seen during Antarctic expeditions.
The most spectacular scene in winter is the huge team of emperor penguins gathering in a cold wind below the Antarctic, when the team is full of male penguins, because every year from May to June the female penguins will lay a huge egg, and then the female penguins will go to the sea to forage for food, while the male penguins consume stored fat until the second half of the summer.
In addition to penguins that spend the winter in the Antarctic hinterland, there are also penguins that live at lower latitudes, such as the Humbold penguin (Humboldt penguin), which lives in South America, mainly breeding along the coast of Peru and Chile.
There are also Magellan penguins in South America, mainly in Argentina, Chile and the Falkland Islands coast, there are also a small number of migration into the territory of Brazil to breed, these areas of latitude has been relatively low, about to the south latitude of 49 degrees, the north latitude of the extension point is equivalent to the central region of Heilongjiang in China.
Blackfoot penguins are penguins that inhabit the southwest coast of Africa, with penguin colonies on 24 islands from Namibia to South Africa's Algoya Bay near Port Elizabeth, with the largest colony located on Dale Island. The latitude here is lower, about 34 degrees south latitude, and the north latitude of the extension point is about the location of Jiangsu Province.
Penguins living in the equatorial region
Galapagos penguins are the penguins distributed in the Cologne Islands in South America, the only penguins that are wild in the northern equator, which is almost the equatorial region, but due to the combined influence of the Peruvian Cold Current and the Cromwell Ocean Current, the environmental temperature of the Coron Islands is much lower than that of other equatorial regions, so the Galapagos Islands have a very unique climate model.
Why didn't the penguins, which can survive almost globally, continue to go north?
Presumably you should have a question, this penguin from the South Pole to the equator has survived, basically the global latitude has crossed, this northern hemisphere is not the inverted southern hemisphere, why did the penguins not continue to go north to the Arctic?
In fact, it is not difficult to answer this question, because most of the earth's continents are located in the northern hemisphere, in terms of ecology, the northern hemisphere is much more complete than the southern hemisphere, and large predators are basically distributed in the northern hemisphere.
I believe that you have also found that the island and regional ecology where the penguins are located are relatively independent, and there are no top predators nearby, otherwise the chubby penguins are not opponents of any predators at all, even wolves can't hold them! There are "two ways" to go from the South Pole to the North Pole, one is the waterway, from the Pacific Ocean or the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the North Pole!
The other way is to take South America - North America to the North Pole, why not from Africa is because the possibility of crossing the desert is still too low, of course, the land is too risky, and penguins are not suitable for long-distance walking, so the first choice is the waterway, although the road will encounter killer whales, sharks, etc., but relatively speaking, the waterway is much more convenient than the land route.
But in fact, there are no penguins in the Arctic, only seals and polar bears, if there are such shaky, extremely easy to catch penguins in the Arctic, then the polar bears will not be hungry, and the Arctic fox is also, because there are too many predators in the Arctic, so even in tens of millions of years, it still has not successfully reached the Arctic.
What about the 69 penguins that were stocked in the Arctic in the twentieth century?
In fact, there are many independent islands in the Arctic Circle, the ecology is relatively independent, polar bears and arctic foxes can not reach the island, so some people plan to harvest the flooded penguins for free through "biological invasion"!
In 1936, the Norwegian polar explorer Lars Christensen planned to use this method to make a windfall, after all, penguins, although not very tasty, penguin down and fat are high-value commodities, so he brought 9 penguins to the Lofoten Islands!
Located in northern Norway, deep into the North Atlantic, due to the influence of the North Atlantic current, here "ice-free harbor" abounds, many small islands are surrounded by the ocean, there are no predators, so it is the best place to keep penguins in captivity, Christensen is very relieved to bring the penguins back to "nature".
After being publicized as an "Arctic penguin", Christensen brought back 60 penguins of various kinds in 1938, hoping that after a few years the penguins flooded here and then make a lot of money by catching them!
But the answer must be known to you, because Norway's Lofoten Islands is originally a famous scenic spot, but it seems that no "Arctic penguins" have come! You guessed that Christensen, who wanted to make a fortune, miscalculated, and in 1954, after the last penguin sighting report, the "Arctic penguin" disappeared.
Why can't the "Arctic Penguins" survive?
Penguins' main food is plankton in the ocean such as krill, as well as small fish, squid and other brachiopods, and in Antarctic penguins eat tens of millions of tons of Antarctic krill every year, in addition to penguins and blue whales These baleen whales also eat krill, and you don't have to worry about krill being eaten.
But near the North Pole, there is not such a large amount of food, so these unsatisfactory penguins can only survive, and finally completely extinct after more than a decade, and Christensen's dream of becoming rich has completely failed.
Further reading: The Flying Penguins of the Arctic
Some people say that there are penguins in the Arctic, that is, the great auk, which is really very similar to the penguins in the Antarctic, but they are not related to each other, just a typical convergence evolution.
It's a shame they went extinct in 1852! But now in the Arctic there is a bird that resembles a penguin, and they can fly! For example, cliff crows, look at the following picture, is there a penguin charm?
Cliff ravens are 38-46 cm long and have a wingspan of 61-73 cm, and if no one tells you, they will be mistaken for some kind of penguin, but they are flying birds, but they can fly but are not very flexible, and they are extremely flexible when swimming in the water. It often dives 30-60 meters underwater, and there are records that its diving depth can reach 180 meters, and perhaps in tens of thousands of years, it may actually evolve into arctic penguins!