King Penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus), family Spheniscidae, order Sphenisciformes, South Georgia Island

photograph by Thomas Kallmeyer

Friends with Benefits

Humanized Rodan and Aptenodytes, my beloveds (I love this duo sm)

Aptenodytes is an OC owned by @ridicbird, go show them some love!

Apt’s mum was an absolute monster

King Penguin

Emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) in southern lights aka Aurora australis

Photo by Stefan Christmann

Aptenodytes Fan art! Oc belongs to @ridicbird

Never sketched a kaiju yet

#1966 - Aptenodytes patagonicus - King Penguin

Photo by @purrdence

At up to 1m tall, the second biggest living penguin species after the Emperor Penguin. Some of the extinct species were *significantly* larger, and following the naming schema would presumably have been called God-Emperor Penguins if they were still around. And not hunted to extinction for their blubber, oil, meat and feathers. The King Penguins were certainly heading that way - by the early 1920s, the population on South Georgia and the Falklands was nearly wiped out by whalers who burned millions of penguins as fuel to render down whale blubber. Happily, the King Penguin is a protected species now - although climate models predict disastrous changes in the location of the Antarctic Convergance by 2100 and add hundreds of kilometers to the distance between their breeding grounds and feeding grounds.

King penguins mainly eat squid, krill and lanternfish, diving to over 300 metres depth in pursuit of this prey. Non-human predators include giant petrels, skuas, snowy sheathbills, leopard seals (who can notoriously turn a penguin inside out to remove the hide), Antarctic fur seals, and orca.

These penguins breed on the Subantarctic islands, South Georgia, Macquarie Island and a few others, often sharing the breeding grounds with other penguin species.

Notable King Penguins include Brigadier Sir Nils Olav, the Edinburgh-based mascot and colonel-in-chief of the Royal Norwegian Guard, and Lala the Penguin who became a viral video star after an Animal Planet special featured him venturing to a nearby market in Japan to fetch a fish with a specially made backpack.

King penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus) in South Georgia

Photographed by Luis Solano Pochet

I was looking for penguin photos for penguin awareness day and noticed you didn't have any Emperor Penguin photos, so could we see some of them, please?

Here is family of Emperors for you…

Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri), parents with chick, family Spheniscidae, order Sphenisciformes, Snow Hill Island, Antarctica

Photograph by Ian Duffy

Oh Brother

King Penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus patagonicus), West Falkland.

King penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus)

Photo by Wim van den Heever

Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri)

© Richard McManus