Penguins are the elements of plant biodiversity. Also, they act as bioindicators of ocean health. But their number decreases due to various issues and their difficulties in surviving. Today their number reduces due to hunting, overfishing, global warming, pollution etc.


Penguins are great swimmers but they adapt themselves to changing environments which is also a task for their living. For their living penguins show many kinds of behavioural activities, some of them are- Emperor penguins who have social behaviour that when it gets cold, they huddle together in groups that may comprise several thousand penguins. The dark coloured feathers of a penguin's back surface absorb heat from the sun, helping them to warm up too.

The most hardships in their life are upbringing their chick and to raise them into adult individuals. Far from deserting their young, penguins are super-parents. Compared with most sea birds, penguins have a very long pre-fledge duration. King Penguins are serially monogamous with both parents sharing all hatching and rearing duties.  Penguin parental care can be divided into two periods. During the guard phase, penguin parents brood the chicks intensively, the female often returns to the sea to forage during this period, which can last up to 37 days and In the next phase, the chicks form tight groups or creches. But for the parents raising their chicks needs a huge investment.

The female lays a single egg that is incubated by the male during the long Antarctic winter. A great deal of the 65-day incubation period is spent in darkness. After standing for weeks, balancing an egg on their feet, with no food, in temperatures down to minus 40 Celsius, might be the epitome of good parenting which they believe. Emperor Penguin parents face an additional challenge in successfully rearing a chick: they breed on seasonal sea-ice, the chicks, therefore, need to fledge before the ice melts in mid-to-late summer. It truly is a race against time. On her return, these penguin parents take turns foraging at sea and caring for the chick in the colony. Emperor penguins have been known to travel some 70 miles, one way, from the waters where they feed to their protective sea ice-breeding grounds. Here, courtship lasts four to six weeks, then the dad is on his own to incubate the egg, which he tucks under his brood flap and balances on his feet for around 50 to 60 days. The parenting cycle goes on as one parent goes hunting and the other keeps the chick safe.

Another hardship of penguins is that no nest is built and the egg is incubated on the feet of the parents, a special fold of abdominal skin covers the egg to keep it warm. The mother penguins then set off back to sea and do not return for nearly four months.  The males do not eat at all throughout this time, but just sit and wait and protect their egg (later the chick) until their mate comes back to relieve them. Also when there is the coldest weather around, the grown-up chicks make a crowd by huddling together for warmth. In this way, they try to beat the harsh weather.

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