Penguin Life Cycle

Imagine climbing into a tree and discovering a nest with eggs. You wonder what kind of bird will hatch from those shells and decide to leave them alone so that the mother and father birds can take care of them. 

Although penguins live in Antarctica and not your backyard, they have a life cycle, or stages they go through from an egg to a chick and finally an adult, just like the birds you see every day. 

THE PENGUINS EGGS 

When you think of the month of April, you probably think of the spring, but it’s fall in Antarctica. And that’s when the ice is thick and strong enough to hold all of the penguins that come out of the water and onto the ice when it’s time to mate and lay eggs.

The mother penguin only lays one egg and then leaves it with the father penguin, just like on a tag team. Around May or June, she goes on a long hunting trip in the ocean, just the way your mom might go to the grocery store, except that the mother penguin is gone for about two months! 

Since penguins don't leave the nesting areas to feed, some species go through the entire courtship, nesting, and incubation period without food or water. For male penguins, this period lasts for 55 days. 

This can be very dangerous for the mother penguin as she's looking for food for her and her new family. She faces many obstacles against predators such as seals, whales, and sharks.

Sadly, this leaves the father penguin alone with his baby egg waiting on mother to arrive with food.

If a penguin lost their mate after only a year or two of breeding together, not selecting a new mate would cause them to miss out on years of offspring. Penguins, like many other bird and animal species, can also be very picky about mates.