Hippo's Wild World of Animals - Random Animal Facts

That's a good wisdom!

I find these animals wholly unappealing, but nice writeup, hippo.

Also, once the weather warms up, I'm changing my status from "fleecy" to "hinky" or possibly "hinkety".

I like nubbin too! Nubbin is the best, but it's not an adjective. I'm trying to limit my status to adjectives or adverbs. "Hinkety" may not be a proper word, but it's an old-fashioned bit of nonsense that's fun to say. 

Wow, sorry I didn't reply sooner, swear I did reply at the time. You can request one of course and I'll try and fit it in, should be sooner than later if I move some stuff about.

Yes!

This week's bird is a non-flightless one again as we cover the Emperor Penguin as requested by Lord Lucan !

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Part of the large Spheniscidae family is Aptenodytes forsteri or the Emperor penguin to you and me. Standing as the largest of the penguins it is the most penguiny of the penguins, even more than the little blue penguin, endemic to the south coasts of New Zealand and Australia.


The emperor penguins are classed as Near Threatened, mostly due to receding ice. Their weight is highly variable going down to 23kg during breeding periods and around 35kg on average when feeding going upto 45kg. They stand at just over a metre tall with females being on average more heavy than the males though by very little.


Out in the cold of the Antarctic, temperatures can be as low as -40º with strong winds and cold waters but don't worry, penguins have feathers and lots of them. Having been adapted for the cold, the majority of their insulation comes from their dense plumage along with a thick layer of fat.


Though birds, penguins cannot fly as they're not equipped with wings but flippers. These are powerful allowing for far more grace underwater than on land though on land they still get around by waddling or sledding on their stomachs.


Emperor penguins are reliant on marine life like most aquatic animals for their food, consuming mostly fish but taking in small cephalopods and small crustaceans like krill. They dive deep to feed, going down regularly to depths of 150m with deeper dives to 500m to bottom feed.


The lives of the emperor pengiins are dominated by the long periods of having to incubate their eggs. They only lay one at a time and is cared by the father while the mother goes off for two months to forage. At the end of this two months of no food, the father is freed to go forage for two months and this continues in a cycle with each going off to feed until the chick is ready to fledge and endure the march of the penguins. It's a crappy life being an emperor penguin.


As survival chances are low, penguins have to be social, often coming together in groups in order to breed and protect their offspring with unique calls so they can be identified in crowds of several thousand birds which all look alike. There is only a 19% chance of survival past the first year due to the cold but if they make it past that they'll live for 20 years, maybe more.


To finish up, while emperor penguins are strong underwater they're also very strong on land too. Apparently during an expedition to capture a male penguin, a team of six were unable to capture it because of how forceful the penguin was and it required all six working at once to capture it.

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Wenk!

Well, at least I learned that penguin carcasses don't rot.

They decide on pecking order by drawing straw lots, shortest gets thrust to the outer rim of Hoth.

Having avoided the penguin documentary fad a few years ago, I don't think I realized until right now how effin' adorable baby penguins are.  I'm late to the party, but AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!  And they have a less-than-20% chance of survival?  I want to give them all adorable little tiny parkas or sweaters!  But then I'll take the parkas/sweaters away when they reach that awkward, ugly teenage bird phase.  They have to learn that if they can't be cute, tiny and fluffy or cute, enormous and in formalwear, they're on their own.

You can tell from its posture that it already thought its day couldn't get worse.

I'm given to understand that there will be no installment this week, but that the series will resume next week by answering the question we've all be asking ourselves - 'Marmots: What is their deal?'.

Yeeeeeah, what is their deal? I never thought to question it until now.

Though it just misses out on the theme, I think we could squeeze in my idea for a band: Manatees on Safari. 
I had even made a rudimentary album cover

We can use recordings of their mating calls as samples to run through synthesizers. It'll draw a lot of people living things to shows!