To start things off, I would like to introduce myself. Hello! My name is Amy, I am 13 years old and have a passion for caring for animals. When I am older, I would like to concentrate my education on becoming a exotic vet. I want to help as many animals I can and help Ubuntu Wildlife Trust. I enjoy learning facts about animals and want to share with you some of my favourite animals facts. I hope to inspire other people my age and younger to care for animals and to help protect them.
I hope you enjoy my fun #factfriday!
This week I wanted to share some fun facts about African penguins, also known as Cape Penguins. When I was younger, I was shocked to discover there were Penguins living in South Africa. Are you surprised to? I remember seeing a colony in Cape Town back in 2016 when I visited with my family.
Scientific name: Spheniscus demersus, is quite descriptive of African penguins: it translates from the Ancient Greek to “plunging wedge”. I must say, I prefer the name, ‘Penguin’.
Habitat: Live in colonies along the South West coast of Africa
Diet: African penguins find their food in the open sea, They eat small fish, squid and small shell fish.
Size: African Penguins can reach up to 70 cm/27 inches in height and weigh up to 3.5 kg.
Lifespan: The average lifespan of an African penguin is 10 to 27 years.
Did you know?
- Like all penguins they can not fly but are excellent swimmers. They can dive up to 400 feet deep and hold their breath for over two minutes! How long can you hold yours?
- One of their most distinctive features is a patch of bare skin above each eye. This helps them cope with high temperatures in South Africa by cooling them down. You can tell if these little Penguins are hot because these bare patches get pinker as a penguin warms up.
- African penguins are sometimes referred to as “jackass” penguins. The cry that African Penguins make to communicate, sounds similar to a donkey.
- Penguins mate for life and return to the same nest site each year.
- The wild African penguin population has been in decline due to habitat destruction, commercial over-fishing, pollution and oil spills. This means that the number of African penguins in the wild are going down and humans are mostly to blame.
- Penguin eggs were considered a delicacy and were collected for sale. Eggs were smashed a few days before they were collected to ensure only fresh ones were sold. This meant viable penguin eggs were destroyed before they could grow into beautiful chicks. Destroying the next generation of penguins.
- Back in the beginning of the 20th century there were an estimated 3 million wild African penguins and today there is less than 19,000 breeding pairs left in the wild.
I don’t want to imagine returning to Cape Town to never see these little penguins again. This is why I am raising awareness of these lovely little flightless birds with hopes we can all come together to protect them.
I hope you enjoyed my fact friday for kids. I will be back with more fun facts in a couple weeks. Until then, I will hand over #factfriday back to the adults.
