100 facts about penguins for kids

Penguins are a group of aquaticflightless birds from the familySpheniscidae of the orderSphenisciformes.

Name

The word penguin first appears in literature at the end of the 16th century as a synonym for the great auk.

When European explorers discovered what are today known as penguins in the Southern Hemisphere, they noticed their similar appearance to the great auk of the Northern Hemisphere and named them after this bird, although they are not closely related.

Adult male penguins are sometimes called cocks, females sometimes called hens; a group of penguins on land is a waddle, and a group of penguins in the water is a raft.

Distribution

Penguins live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is found north of the Equator, but this is only made possible by the cold, rich waters of the Antarctic Humboldt Current that flows around these islands.

Today, larger penguins generally inhabit colder