HOW DO PENGUINS KEEP THEIR EGGS WARM?

Penguins are only found in the southern hemisphere, not in the Arctic. Many penguins lay only one egg during the dark days of winter. The female and male penguin’s first bond and then mate to lay an egg the size of a softball on the ice in midwinter. The male thrusts the egg up onto his feet, where it is protected and cushioned by the male’s “brood patch,” a warm fold of feathers and his bulging stomach which rests atop the feet. The egg remains in that place for 9 weeks until it hatches during the coldest months of the Antarctic winter.

Both female and male penguins protect their eggs and newly hatched chicks by enveloping them under a fold of body skin. During the reproductive cycle of the first part the mother penguin has to fast, but after eggs are laid, they go away to fatten them.

The adult males then take over, incubating the eggs and the newly hatched chicks for the 9 weeks in midwinter. The part of the bird’s belly touches the egg and the bare of feathers to facilitate the waft of heat from the father penguin to his offspring. At the end of their babysitting stint, the fathers turn the chicks over to their returning mother penguin and cross the sea again.

If the weather conditions come to be so severe that a parent’s resources can no longer deal with the cold, it abandons the egg to save itself, as it could do under other cases. All penguins are littered with abandoned eggs and dead chicks.

Females lay a single egg in midwinter and then promptly leave it behind. Depending on the volume of the ice, the females might also need to travel some 50 miles to attain the open ocean, in which they will feed on squid, fish, and krill.