Why do the penguins do not fly - answers for children and adults

Penguins are perhaps one of the most amazing birds on the planet. They live in the cold waters of Antarctica, southern continents - Africa, America, Australia, where despite the name "south" is always cold and ice. They feel great during cold snowstorms, in snow and ice water, hunt, play, find out relationships, withdraw and raise chicks.

There are 18 different species of these amazing birds, they differ in size, character, habits, appearance. But all the penguins are similar in one, they feel great in water, a little clumsy on land, and do not fly at all, as it should be normal birds. But why don't the penguins fly?

Why don't penguins fly?

Why the penguins do not fly - the answer for children and adults is quite simple. Because they don't need it! Why this is so, let's try to figure it out. The question immediately arises - but in general, are the penguins birds?

Yes, they are. The structure of the body is bird, there is a beak and wings, feathers and tail. It's just that all this is much better adapted for diving and swimming than for the flight. Penguin's bones are not tubular, like most birds, but heavy, continuous. The wings are muscular, More resembling fins.

Feathers look like hair, grow throughout the body, close to each other, and even over a thick fat layer. The short tail also more resembles a steering fin in fish.

Hard thick feathers are ideal for life in ice conditions, but absolutely not suitable for flight

It cannot be said that the penguins lead a sedentary lifestyle - from the places where their colonies and nests are located, huge distances sometimes run to the searches of food. It seems logical that they are easier to overcome in flight than on foot.
However, clumsy birds with undeveloped wings prefer to wander on the paws, which, by the way, are located not like other birds, but below the body, What helps them walk, funny shifting from side to side and holding the body vertically. Moreover, they sometimes change the method of movement to faster - Lie down on the stomach and slide over the ice, pushing their wings.

So it turns out that for the flight and diving, completely different abilities are needed, and at the same time you can not be a good dive and flyer. The main diet of penguins - fishas well as small crustaceans and mollusks that live in cold ocean waters. And in the icy desert of the Antarctic there is practically no food. So the penguins had to adapt, so that there was always the opportunity to get more food.
As for the dangers, they fit in wait for Penguin both at sea and on land. In the sea, sea leopards, cats and lions, as well as killer whales, are hunting for them, and this is a very serious danger. But you can be saved from them, swimming at high speed, as well as jumping ashore from the water - penguins are able to jump out very high!

On land in adults, natural enemies are smaller. Seagulls are hunting for eggs and small chicks, but often adult females are able to repulse them. So here the ability to fly does not play a key role.
In general, nature has focused on capabilities all the capabilities of Penguin swim and dive, Which is much more important to him than the ability to fly. So these birds do not fly at all, but in the ocean they feel without exaggeration, like a fish in water. In other words - no half -dead! It is better to have one well -developed ability than two half
Now it's time to ask the question, was it always the case? Did these birds fly before, and if so, then why did the penguins stop flying? In a nutshell, this question can be answered so because, living in the ice of Antarctica, it is much more important to be able to extract food from the ocean than to spend life energy on rather meaningless flights.
It is difficult to say whether they flew before or not. Perhaps at one time the ancestors of the penguins lived in warmer parts, and the ability to fly was not alien to them. But with the resettlement under the influence of some circumstances in the ice of Antarctica, they began to develop swimming abilities and the ability to dive, and the ability to fly was atrophied as unnecessary.

Why don't the penguins know how to fly and did they fly earlier?

And perhaps from the very beginning of the penguins were adapted to this way of life, and over time simply honed their skills. Probably now it is not so important. In any case, we can observe the life of amazing creatures - penguins, And once again to be surprised and admired by the variety of nature in general and the animal world in particular.

We advise you to read interesting articles that will answer your questions: