Researching key "nuggets" of information for my Top 10 research- for quick, decisive and clear information to act as a resource to return to at the later stages of my design development. Information sourced with links, where appropriate, above the information about penguins (my subject matter)- particularly looking at facts/data that would interest my specific target audience, 5-11 year old children (nothing too gory about predators of penguins, for example, etc).
PLEASE NOTE: IN A FEW CASES, WHERE THE FACTS ARE NOT SOURCED ARE DUE TO GENERAL KNOWLEDGE ABOUT PENGUINS, FACTS PRODUCED MYSELF FROM PAST INTERACTION/INFORMATION ABOUT THE ANIMALS
20 FACTS
1. Both male and female penguins take turns in incubating their eggs for long stretches of time, whilst the other sources food and shelter.
2. The torpedo-like shape of their bodies keeps them streamlined in the water, and, therefore, very fast swimmers (up to 25 m.p.h).
3. Penguins are found only in the Southern Hemisphere. While most people
associate penguins with Antarctica, they are much more widespread and
penguin populations can also be found in South America, South Africa,
Australia and New Zealand.
4. They are the fastest swimming and deepest diving species of any birds.
5. The emperor penguin
is the largest of the penguin species and can weigh up to 90 pounds.
The blue (little) penguin is the smallest and weighs only 2 pounds.
6. The yellow-eyed penguin is believed to be the rarest penguin species,
with only approximately 5,000 birds. They can only be found along the
southeastern coast of New Zealand and nearby islands.
7. Penguins are social birds that form breeding colonies numbering in the
tens of thousands. They may use the same nesting grounds for thousands
of years, and colonies can number in the millions.
8. Tobogganing: Penguins lie on their
belly and toboggan through the ice and snow. This helps them move
quickly.
9. Penguins sleep standing up.
10. The Gentoo gets the honour not only of being the
fastest penguin moving through water but also of being the fastest
underwater bird at roughly 25 mph.
11. They can hold their breath for about 20 minutes under water.
12. Their feathers are waterproof and help them maintain insulation.
13. Very rarely a penguin is born with brown instead of black plumage and such penguins are called
isabelline penguins.
14. Baby penguins are born with soft feathers called down.
15. Penguins live in large groups called
colonies or rookery.
16. Penguins keep warm with insulating layers
consisting of tightly packed feathers, air, skin, and
blubber.
17. The only species of Penguin that lives near the equator is the Galapagos Penguin (Spheniscus mendiculus).
18. Most penguins lay two eggs in a clutch. The Emperor and the King Penguins, the two largest species, lay only one.
19. Penguins seem to have no special fear of humans, and have approached groups of explorers without hesitation.
20. All penguins share the incubation duties except for the male Emperor Penguin who does it all.
20 STATISTICS
1. Longest distance travelled by a Little Penguin so far was 1012 km, from
Jervis Bay, NSW to Coorong National Park in South Australia.
2. Deepest dive of a Little Penguin: 73 metres (using an electronic depth recorder).
3. Longest dive of a Little Penguin: 116 seconds.
4. Average weight of Little Penguin dropping: 6 grammes.
5. The weight of a Gentoo Penguin varies between 5.5-6.4 kg.
6. The average swimming speed of a Rockhopper Penguin is 7.5 km/h.
7. The average height of the world's smallest penguin, the Little Penguin, is 40-45 cm.
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20 WORDS
1. Bird
2. Flightless
3. Swim
4. Monochrome
5. Ice
6. Antarctica
7. New Zealand
8. Clutch
9. Krill
10. Ocean
11. Macaroni
12. Monogamy
13. Fish
14. Zoo
15. (Southern) Hemisphere
16. Waddle
17. Incubation
18. Nests
19. Beaks
20. Feathers
20 OPINIONS// WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE TYPE OF PENGUIN?
- Generating an opion to develop my design work on- which penguin designs/species should feature prominently, etc.
1. King
2. King
3. Adelie
4. Emperor
5. Little (Blue)/Fairy
6. Gentoo
7. Chinstrap
8. King
9. Macaroni
10. Emperor
11. Emperor
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20 CULTURAL REFERENCES
1. Jealous Rockhopper Penguins throw their own poo at visitors of the Edinburgh Zoo as the new additions (two breeding pandas) are introduced to their enclosure next to theirs, December 2011.
2. Animated children's television programme- Pingu.
3. Book, 'The Pebble & The Penguin'.
4. Animated 2007 children's film 'Surf's Up!' by Sony Pictures.
5. BBC One's 2011 Wildlife documentary, 'Frozen Planet', as narrated/presented by renowned British broadcaster and naturalist, David Attenbourough.
6. BBC One's 2006 Wildlife documentary, 'Planet Earth', as
narrated/presented by renowned British broadcaster and naturalist, David
Attenbourough.
7. Animated children's films 'Happy Feet' & 'Happy Feet 2'.
8. 2005 documentary film, 'March of the Penguins', which follows a colony of Emperor Penguins.
9. Character Feathers McGraw in Aardman's 'Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers'- plasticine stop motion character who disguises himself as a chicken with the aid of a rubber glove on his head.
10. DC Comic's Batman villain, 'The Penguin', as depicted by American Actor Danny DeVito in Tim Burton's classic film.
11. The 'Penguin' brand of biscuits, created by the McVities brand- famous of wonderfully good chocolate flavour, and wonderfully bad jokes.
12. The publishing house, 'Penguin', which use the iconic monochromatic illustrative logo of a penguin in their book cover designs.
13. The famous animated sequence in classic British film, 'Mary Poppins', where Mary and Bert are served by eager and attentive penguin waiters.
14. In iconic cult film 'Fight Club', the narrator's "power animal" is a talking King Penguin.
15. In the 2004 film '50 First Dates' starring Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler, Sandler's character has a penguin friend at the zoo he works at (in Hawaii) named Willie.
16. 'And Tango Makes Three' by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, illustrated by Henry Cole, is the true story of a penguin chick raised by two males at the Central Park Zoo in New York.
17. 1938 book, later adapted into a 2011 film starring Jim Carrey, 'Mr Popper's Penguins' is a children's book written by Richard and Florence Atwater in which Mr. Popper unexpectedly comes into posession of a penguin, and then getting a penguin from a zoo (who breeds with the original penguin), gives birth to ten chicks- and documents their madcap lives together.
18. Sir Nils Olav, a King Penguin living in Edinburgh Zoo, Scotland, is also the mascot of the Royal Norwegian Guard and their titular Colonel-in-Chief.
19. The school mascot of the New England Conservatory of Music (Boston, MA) is the Fighting Penguin.
20. Edinburgh Zoo's current logo includes a vector pictogram of a swimming penguin.
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