The only bird that breeds through the Antarctic winter, on sea ice, in temperatures below minus 40 C
Emperor penguin.
Nature · Birds
Emperor penguin
Endangered (IUCN, uplisted April 2026)
Aptenodytes forsteri — Spheniscidae
The largest living penguin, up to 1.2 m tall and 45 kg, and the only bird that breeds through the Antarctic winter, on the sea ice itself. The male incubates the single egg on his feet under a brood pouch for about 65 days in temperatures below minus 40 C, huddling with thousands of others and eating nothing for over 100 days. In April 2026 the IUCN uplisted it from Near Threatened to Endangered, on projections that sea-ice loss will halve the population by the 2080s.
How to spot them
- ▸The largest penguin: 100–120 cm tall, 22–45 kg, far bigger than the similar king penguin
- ▸Broad pale yellow ear patches that fade into the white breast — the king penguin's orange patches are sharply defined
- ▸A pale lilac-pink lower mandible stripe (orange in the king penguin)
- ▸Chicks are silver-grey down with a black head and a white face mask
- ▸Breeds on fast ice, not land; huddles of thousands of adults rotating through the centre
How to know it
The male balances the single egg on his feet under a brood pouch for about 65 days, fasting for over 100
Emperor penguin — the female returns to feed the chick.
The deepest-diving bird: recorded to 564 m and for nearly 28 minutes
Emperor penguin.
Robert Falcon Scott's men made a midwinter journey to Cape Crozier in 1911 to collect its eggs
Emperor penguin — Apsley Cherry-Garrard's The Worst Journey in the World.
Uplisted from Near Threatened to Endangered in April 2026 as sea ice retreats
Emperor penguin — IUCN Red List.
Some colonies are found and counted from space, by the brown guano stains they leave on the ice
Emperor penguin — satellite surveys by the British Antarctic Survey.
The subject of the 2005 documentary La Marche de l'empereur, released in English as March of the Penguins
Emperor penguin.
Quick-fire facts
- •Height 100–120 cm, weight 22–45 kg; the largest and heaviest living penguin
- •IUCN Red List: Endangered — uplisted from Near Threatened in April 2026, on projections that the population will halve by the 2080s
- •Satellite imagery indicated a loss of around 10 per cent of the population between 2009 and 2018, more than 20,000 adults
- •Record dive: 564 m deep and about 27.6 minutes long, the deepest and longest of any bird
- •The male fasts for 110–120 days from arriving at the colony to the chick hatching, losing up to 45 per cent of his body weight
- •Some 60-odd breeding colonies are known, most located or confirmed from satellite images of guano stains
- •Named for Johann Reinhold Forster, naturalist on Cook's second voyage; the genus Aptenodytes means 'featherless diver'
- •The only other member of the genus is the king penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus)
- •The 1911 winter journey to Cape Crozier by Edward Wilson, Henry Bowers and Apsley Cherry-Garrard was made to collect emperor penguin embryos
Drill it — 9 cards
1 / 9new card