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(order Sphenisciformes), any of the flightless marine birds of the family Spheniscidae. They are limited in distribution to the Southern Hemisphere. Although a few penguins inhabit temperate regions and one, the G�lapagos penguin (Spheniscus mendiculus), lives at the Equator, the majority of the 18 species breed on islands in subantarctic waters.
The stocky, short-legged appearance of penguins has endeared them to the popular mind. They range from about 35 centimetres (14 inches) in height and approximately one kilogram (about two pounds) in weight, in the little blue, or fairy, penguin (Eudyptula minor), to 115 centimetres (45 inches) and 25 to 40 kilograms (55 to 90 pounds) in the emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri; see photograph.
Most are black on the back and white below, often with lines of black across the upper breast or spots of white on the head. Colour is rare, being limited to red or yellow irises of the eye in some species; red beaks or feet in a few; yellow brow tufts in the three species of Eudyptes; and orange and yellow on the head, neck, and breast in the two species of Aptenodytes.
The total populations of some species, such as the emperor penguin, are estimated in hundreds of thousands, but those of most species of smaller penguins certainly run to several million. The largest breeding colonies are on the islands between 50 south latitude and Antarctica. These immense colonies, some of which contain hundreds of thousands of individuals, represent a large potential food resource, but the economic importance of penguins is negligible. Nineteenth-century whalers and seal hunters visited some colonies for meat and eggs, and a penguin oil industry once took large numbers of birds; by the early 20th century, however, this exploitation was no longer profitable, and most colonies were left alone or actively protected. Some species are now increasing in numbers, apparently as a result of the drastic reduction of Antarctic whales, which compete with penguins for the krill (minute crustaceans) on which both feed.
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