King Penguin
(Aptenodytes patagonicus)
King Penguins are the second largest species of penguin, after the Emperor penguins.
Some of the the king penguins' distinctive markings include a silvery-grey back with a blackish-brown head that is adorned with beautiful patches of bright golden-orange feathers around their ear area. They appear similar to the emperor penguin, but can be differentiated by the orange coloring on their upper breast area, and they have longer bills and more slender bodies. As with most other penguin species, the male and female king penguins have about the same size and appearance, and can be difficult to tell apart aside from their behaviorial differences.
A king penguins diet consists of mainly lanternfish and other small fish, as well as squid. When hunting for food, king penguins use their flippers to regularly dive over 350 feet underwater, and are capable of diving over 700 feet, which is the deepest of any penguin except for emperor penguins. It's not unusual for a king penguin to stay underwater for 15 minutes or longer.
At sea, they need to be careful of predators such as leopard seals and killer whales, who wait under the surface hunting for unsuspecting penguins. On shore, predatory birds such as Giant petrels, skuas, and sheathbills will often raid a colony of king penguins and take eggs or baby penguins left unattended.
King penguins prefer to live on level ground not far from the sea, and they make their colonies on beaches, valleys and glacial moraines where there is no ice or snow.
King penguins have an unusually long breeding season, and their breeding is done on the north reaches of Antarctica, and also have large populations on the Falkland Islands, Macquarie Islands, Heard Island, Iles Crozet and Marion island. The female penguin lays her eggs anytime between from November through April, and as a result, there are young penguins of various ages in the colony at any given time. From courtship and hatching, until the time of the chicks fledgling, may take 14 months or longer.
Similarly to Emperor penguins, King penguin parents both share the responsibility of caring for the egg, which can sometimes take longer than 5 weeks. King penguins also incubate their eggs on top of their feet.
It might sound nasty to us, but adult king penguins feed their offspring by eating fish, digesting it, and then regurgitating the fish into the baby penguins mouth. Once the young penguins are old enough and big enough to be away from their parents for short amounts of time, but not old enough to completely be independent, the penguin community will often form Crèches, which is a group of many young penguins together. This makes it easier to care for their offspring, because a penguin parent go hunt for food for a few hours and can leave their baby in the care of a few adults who stayed behind. The adult penguins can take turns watching over the young penguins.
Unlike other kinds of penguins, a king penguin is not ready to go to sea on it's own until about 14-16 months after it hatches out of it's egg.
King penguins have adapted well to their extreme living conditions in the subantarctic. To keep warm, king penguins have four layers of plumage. The outer layer is oiled and waterproof, almost like a duck. The inner three layers serve as insulation from the cold, and are a downy type of feather. Baby king penguins are born without the waterproof outer layer, and therefore cannot go out to sea until they reach maturity.
The king penguin is not considered to be an endangered species, with recent 2007 estimates putting the population at more than 2.2 million breeding pairs, so their conservation staus is secure for now.