Penguins love relatively cold climates, but despite people’s beliefs, there are no penguins at the North Pole. They live in Antarctica, Australia, New Zealand, Peru, Chile, the Falkland Islands, the Galapagos Islands, and South Africa.
Penguins don’t have any teeth! Instead, they have barbed tongues and throats to help them eat fish, squid, shrimp, krill, and other crustaceans.
There are more than 18 different penguin species. Emperor penguins are the tallest, reaching about 47 inches (they’re also the biggest, weighing up to 90 pounds) Little blue penguins (also known as fairy penguins) are the smallest and shortest of their species, measuring about 13 inches tall. Fairy penguins weigh about 2 pounds, making them the smallest of the species.
Normally, wild penguins will live an average of 15-20 years. However, the effects of climate change are putting more of their natural habitats and food sources at risk each year. As a result, some penguin colonies populations have shrunk by up to 80 percent.