When you see or even think of the Adélie penguins many ideas come to mind. One of the first things is Antarctica and winter. Also it is so cool the way they swim thru the water. Or they are so cute with their black and white feathers. Another big feature they are known for is the funny way they walk. But what doesn’t come to mind is their diet or how they can dive at the depths the way they do or even why do they wait on the edge of the ice. When it comes to the living in Antarctica their features help them to live in an environment that most people wouldn’t even think to live. The purpose of this paper is to explain how the Adélie penguin has had to adapt to its habitat to survive. The first thing you need to know is that the Adélie penguin …show more content…
Penguins’ wings are a big part of getting them from place to place in the water, either to get krill which is a big part of their diet, or avoid the leopard seal. The wings are more like “flippers” instead of wings; they are shorter to help push them thru the water at speeds of 72kph or 45mph (Adelie, 2008; Ward, 2001). Speed is important to the Adélie. Speed in the water is the difference between life and death to them. The leopard seals maximum speeds have been record at 29km/h or 18mph (“Seals”, 2008). A big part of survival in the artic for penguins is their …show more content…
One thing we don’t think about is that they drink water like other living beings, but in their environment everything is salt water. The Adélie penguin has had to adapt to a high salt diet. The Adélie eat about 2kg every day (“Adelie” 2008). Their food source is even salty. So to be able to eat and drink all that salt they have “salt glands and kidneys that produce concentrated urine” (Ward, 2001). But to get to their source of food they have to dive to get it.
Penguins have also had to adjust to deep diving to be able to get to their food source. The krill only come to the surface during the night so penguins have to swim deep to reach them during the day “they can dive to depths of 175 meters” (Ward, 2001; “Adelie 2008). To adapt to the deep their “Muscle has large amounts of myoglobin to hold extra oxygen that is used up during a dive” and their heart beat can go from 80-100 to 20 beats a minuet (Ward, 2001). But before they even get in the water is the waiting.
As mentioned before the leopard seal is one of the predators that they are afraid of. Because of this they have learned to wait and watch the water for any threat (Ward, 2001). But once they think there is no threat only one will jump in and if nothing happens they all jump in all at once (Ward,