Yesterday, an Xmas penguin by Yvonne Felix (#1 here), which reminded me that people have been sending me penguin images for quite some time. Here, in no particular order, are a few of these.
Penguins in sweaters. From Horton Copperpot on Facebook, from the World Explore site: Animal of the Day, these sweatered penguins:
(#1)
The full story is rather distressing. From Snopes, citing the Penguin Foundation:
A New Year’s Day 2000 spill of 260 gallons of fuel oil off the southern tip of Australia prompted an appeal that resulted in piles of sweaters (“jumpers,” in Australia) being sent to aid the damaged little birds, many crafted by the capable hands of American knitters. To be better prepared for the next such environmental crisis, in 2001, the Tasmanian Conservation Trust and State Library ran the knit-for-a-penguin campaign. They hoped to build a stockpile of 100 sweaters. They got more than they bargained for.
The original result was an oversubscription of this entreaty for aid, with the appeal threatening to escalate into a “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” situation. One thousand sweaters were quickly received, with more arriving all the time.
Far too many sweaters. And they were almost surely not good for the penguins in any case.
A giant penguin. Via Ellen Evans and Michael Palmer on Facebook. from the I Fucking Love Science site, the 8/1/14 story “Scientists Discover Massive Species Of Extinct Penguin” by Janet Fang:
Colossal penguin bones from the extinct species Palaeeudyptes klekowskii have been discovered on an island in the Antarctic Peninsula. According to a new study published in Comptes Rendus Palevol last week, these newly uncovered bones belonged to a 2-meter-long behemoth, the tallest and heaviest penguin ever described.
Thomas Huxley discovered a genus of giant extinct penguins named Palaeeudyptes back in 1859, and four species have since been identified. Palaeeudyptes klekowskii, described in 1990, is the biggest of the genus, and it lived 37 to 40 million years ago. This was “a wonderful time for penguins, when 10 to 14 species lived together along the Antarctic coast,” Carolina Acosta Hospitaleche from Museo de La Plata in Argentina tells New Scientist.
A reconstruction:
(#2)
Ascent of Fred Astaire (or someone like him). From Victor Steinbok, this instance of the visual trope The Ascent of Man (innumerable examples, including zombie versions):
(#3)
The artwork is here, from this page.
Traveling to Antarctica. From Chris Waigl, this sticker from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, for traveling to Antarctica:
(#4)
Note. I’ve selected a very small number of examples, because I think they have some special interest. But I have tons of photos of penguins, and you can find tons more on the net; I don’t propose to start a Penguin Blog.
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