Instant Genius - Why penguins are one of the planet’s most unique bird species

Episode Date: September 14, 2025

Thanks to their comical waddle-like way of walking, striking tuxedo-patterned plumage or graceful ability to seemingly ‘fly’ beneath the water, penguins are without doubt one of the planet’s most instantly recognisable animals. But the fact is that they are also one of its most endangered species of bird. In this episode, we’re joined by Dr Peter Fretwell, lead scientist at the British Antarctic Survey, to talk about his latest book The Penguin Book of Penguins – An Expert’s Guide to the World’s Most Beloved Bird. He tells us how, despite popular belief, penguins are found all over the globe, not just in Antarctica, why exactly they have such a comical way of walking and the actions we need to take if we want to save these charismatic birds from extinction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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combine handcrafted tradition with cutting-edge innovation and high-end materials, delivering digital precision with analogue warmth, so you can experience exceptional sound at home. Music just as the artist intended. Visit nameadio.com to learn more. Hello, and welcome to Institutional. genius, a bite-sized masterclass in podcast form. Every Monday and Friday, you'll hear world-leading

scientists and experts talking about the most fascinating ideas in science and technology today. I'm Jason Goodyear, commissioning editor at BBC Science Focus. Thanks to their comical waddle-like way of walking, striking tuxedo pattern plumage, and graceful ability to seemingly fly beneath the water. Penguins are without doubt one of the planet's most instantly recognizable animals. But the fact is they're also one of its most endangered species of bird. In this episode, we're joined by Dr Peter Fretwell, lead scientist at the British Antarctic Survey to talk about his latest book, The Penguin Book of Penguins, an expert's guide to the world's most beloved bird.

He tells us how, despite popular belief, penguins are found all over the globe, not just in Antarctica. Why exactly they have such a comical way of walking, and speaks about the actions we need to take if we want to save these charismatic birds from extinction. So welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for joining us. Hello, Jason. So today we're talking about your latest book, The Penguin Book of Penguins, an expert's guide to the world's most beloved bird. So let's start with the sort of obvious question first then.

Because I bet you've got the sort of job that a lot of people would really like to do. So how did you end up studying penguins? Yeah, it's a great job. I have to say I'm very lucky. I fell into it totally by accident. I'm not a biologist or a bird by trade. I'm a satellite scientist. And go back just over 15 years now to 2009. And I was mostly then doing cartography, mapping, with a lot of remote sensing work as well. And discovered by accident that I could see Emperor Penguin colonies on the ice by looking for their poo in freely available satellite imagery. which was revolutionary because at the time we didn't know how many colonies there were or where they were or what the population was or anything like that. So the ability to see them on the ice was really changed the way we studied them. I went around and discovered lots of new colonies, being able to find them and know where they were,

meant that we could actually send higher-resolution satellites to go and count them as well. So it's totally transformed it, but it's also transformed my career from being a cartographer, a remote sensing person, to really a penguin scientist. And now I have my own group. So it's been a real ride. So let's get some information about penguins onto the board then. So first of, how many different species are there? Because I know this is actually a trickier question than it first seems.

It is. It's really debated amongst the scientific community. If you say officially we mean the International Union of Conservation, they list 18 species, but many of those are debated. So it used to be 17 species. They've recently split it into 18 species because they think that the Northern Rockhopper and the Southern Rockhopper are two different species.

But there are many other potential species, which could be more than one species. So for instance, the Little Penguin, we have different morphological changes and different behavioural changes in different parts of their things. So actually saying what is a species is a real tricky conundrum for biologists at the moment and taxonomists.

And actually, we use a lot of genetics. People say, well, why can't you use genetics? And genetics have come along. And that's, if anything, clouded the picture because it shows that there's a lot of genetic differences between some species which look almost identical. So it's not easy in any way. But we say 18 generally.

So I think a common misconception about penguins is that they're only found, or amongst some people, they're only found in Antarctica. But this isn't true at all, is it? They're kind of spread around all over. Yes, they are. In fact, the majority of the mountain in Antarctic, the majority of population and species,

they're found in the southern ocean generally, but some do go further north on that. In fact, a few hundred just go north of the equator. But they are almost all south of the equator. That's the Galapagos penguins, which have sort of straddle the equator. But most of them are in the southern ocean. There are only really four species

which breed in Antarctica out over there 18 or so. So what sort of variation is there then from species to species in terms of size and looks and that sort of thing? Well, if you go on size is a great difference, you've got the little penguin, which is just a few pounds, up to the emperor penguin, which is huge. And my role recently has been to study emperor penguins, and I go out there and handle them and try and lift them up and things to put tags on them,

and they're heavy. They can weigh up to 45 kilograms, so 100 weight of penguins, that's a big bird. they, up to four feet high when they stretch their necks out. So it's a very tall as well. A real piece of white, you know, you can really feel an emperor penguin. So there is quite a lot of difference. But also, not just in the size, but also the morphology, the way they look, the way they behave,

some sort of are very straits and some are more couched over. The behaviours, some have nests, some breed with their eggs on their feet, and some burrow. So then more northern ones would get out of the sun. in those more tropical areas they'll burrow. So there's quite a lot of different behaviours between penguin species and some amazing adaptations for all the extreme places they live.

Yeah, so let's have a look at some of these their sort of unique abilities and qualities. So one key characteristic of penguins is that they're flightless birds, even though they have wings, they don't fly. So do we know when this happened in their evolution? Yeah, so this is something that happened

millions of years ago, 80 to 60 million years ago. After the dinosaurs died out, there was a sort of a gap in the market, as it were, for a marine predator that could go and forage and eat all the fish. And that's when penguins evolved. And we got some really big penguins evolving in the early years, all the way through. So if you look, 50, 40, 30 million years ago, we had penguins that were six feet or tall or more. And really monstrous big penguins. Those have actually died out, and we're left with these 18.

species now. That's not the most penguins. We've had more species in the historical past. And one of the things you'd think that maybe they'd evolve in Antarctica, but that's not true. They evolved mostly around New Zealand originally. That seems to be where the origin of the penguin was, and they've generally over time spread out across the southern ocean and into Africa and South America, and colonized Antarctica as well. So it's a really interesting evolution over geological time for these birds. Yeah, so it's sort of related to this. Another, one of the instantly

recognizable characteristics of penguins is the sort of comical, peculiar way in which they walk. So how, because they're a bit clumsy on that, you know, being kind, they're a bit clumsy on land. So what makes them walk in this sort of strange waddly way?

Yes, they're waddle. They're famous for their waddle. Very endearing feature really, but it's biology, really. They've really adapted to maximize their speed under water, their ability to swim. So that's meant that over time, the legs have become shorter and shorter, and almost, not so much an afterthought, but they only use them and they've, sort of sparingly on land, and they've maximised that evolution biology for fast swimming, which is meant two things, really, that their

legs are at the end of their bodies and they have a straight spine. Their knees are quite small, so their shins are very small and that means that they can't really stretch their legs much and that gives them their waddle. So it's the fact that they've got very short legs because of their biology which is meant that they really maximise their swimming capacity. Yeah, so let's have a look at a bit about their swimming ability then because it's quite, they almost sort of fly underwater, don't they? Well, yes, we say that the penguins can't fly, but actually they do sort of fly underwater.

And in reality, they use the same thing that a bird uses to fly, that Bonoli's law of pressure over the wings, to actually increase their speed underwater as well. And if you see them underwater, you're looking enough to see them underwater for any longer for time, they're really graceful, and they're really fast. They can go 20 miles an hour or more underwater.

So they really are quite good, and the diving ability is incredible. So how deep can they dive? Because I think the record for human free diver was about 250 metres. But, I mean, we've got nothing on the best penguins, have we? No, no, an emperor penguin, I think the record, we've only tagged a few of them, so we probably haven't seen the deepest dives. But the deepest dives we've recorded about 560 metres or so. So over half a kilometre deep diving down, holding their breath for 25 minutes or more. And they're not doing this occasionally. They'll do this every day.

to be on 500 metres every day. And to do that, they've got these amazing adaptations where they slow their heartbeat down to just a few beats per minute to minimise the use of oxygen. It's all about sort of minimizing the oxygen and using the oxygen that they can. They've got more hebo-gloming in their blood so they can store more oxygen.

They can survive on really, really, really, really low amounts of blood oxygen. Things which would kill a human. So just a few percent, or maybe 10% blood oxygen or something like that, We would die at less than 20 or 30%. They do this and go down to those rates every day when they're diving. It's an incredible adaptation. They virtually die, as it were, every day when they're diving, to go to the bottom of the ocean and to forage for the fish and the krill that they survive on.

What do they typically eat? Well, it's a mixture. Depends on the species, but generally you're talking the krill, the little crustacean shrimp-like things in the Southern Ocean, but mostly fish. We think of them eating fish and that is true actually. Most of them will eat fish, but also jellyfish and squids and other things they can catch. Some are more picky than others.

Some will eat almost purely krill or purely fish. A lot of them will be quite generalists and eat what they can get. But fish is a main part of the diet. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition. for Citizens Bank. You said this place was steps from the water.

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and gives it emotional texture. Today, in partnership with French acoustic specialist's focal, name audio creates systems that deliver exceptional sound and unforgettable listening experiences at home. Try it for yourself at a focal powered by name boutique. Visit focal powered by name.com for more information. So one interesting, fun fact that I picked up on in the book is that some penguins have the ability to sort of give themselves a jet boost when they're swimming. I thought this is brilliant.

Can you explain that for us? It is, yeah. So they can swim quite fast anyway, but if they really need that extra bit of speed, easier to get out the way of a predator or jump out of the water onto the ice, then they've got this strange ability, several species, especially in the Antarctic penguins. because their feathers are waterproof and they can close and open their feathers at will and they can store air in those feathers.

So it's not, it looks like a jetboots, but it's not really a jetboots. What it is is when they're just about to exit the water, to increase their speed, they can squeeze their feathers which leaves a trail of bubbles. And that trail of bubbles changes the density of the water, which means that they can go faster. and then they can accelerate through this bubble area and zoom and jump out of the water

or extra a few miles per hour to get out of the way of a predator. So sort of sticking with the feathers, I think a lot of people will have seen nature documentaries of penguin colonies sort of huddling together and blimey it looks cold. So do they have specially adapted feathers to keep themselves warm? They do, yes. You're probably talking about the emperor penguins,

which famously huddling Antarctica over the Antarctic winter and that they breed and survive in these terrible temperatures and terrible wind speeds, you can get down to minus 50 or minus 60, something that would just kill a human straight away. But they're adapted. That's what they like. That's what they're evolved to do. That's a happy, well, it's not necessarily the happy place,

but that's where they live. To do that, they famously huddle, but their warmth is almost all sort of saved for the feathers. It's not like a seal which has got great amounts of blubber on it or a whale. They have very little blubber or fat, and they are somewhat fat, but most of it is in their feathers. They have extremely well-adapted feathers to do this, really quite thick, so you might be talking maybe a couple of centimetres of insulation there, and maybe a dozen different types of feather, sort of specialised in different parts of the body to really help

them save heat. It's all about saving heat and not letting any out. So an outer layer of thick feathers to be waterproof, but an inner layer of down, several different types of down, to really minimize the heat loss over there. So it's incredible. And if I've been looking enough to handle Emperor penguins, they're incredibly soft. The feathers on them are sometimes to keep them calm. You can stroke the nape like you would do a cat or something like that. And that keeps the penguin calm.

But I'm not sure who was getting the most out of it, me or the penguin. Absolutely. So let's have a look at penguin relationships. So a lot of people think penguins mate for life. Is that true? some species do, some species don't. It's quite dependent. And also, even in the ones that mate for life,

there are sort of divorces. And if you're not getting on with your partner after a few years, sometimes they'll go in and choose. And some of them, you know, they will do the dirty on their partners. For instance, a Gentus and the dailies where they have these big stone nests. You're given the right sort of stone. Somebody can come in and sell their services for a stone. So there's a very complex social behaviour.

in several species of penguins. And some studies have been done on this, and it's been absolutely incredible. Quite funny. We often anthropomorphise penguins, we're comparing them to little people because they're one of the very few species, which is bipedal and have a straight back like we do.

So as scientists, we hate that. They look like people think of it. But you can't get away from it almost in science. They do have these social structures, and there are certain characteristics which we can really relate to. The mating one of some mateful, life and some don't and all of that is very relatable as a human. So another thing that most people will have seen is the sort of comedically fluffy chicks

that penguins have. So what do we know about those? You know, because they look, they look like hot and wool essentially, don't we? Yeah. Another thing we're not supposed to say in science is cute, but you can't get away from it. They do look. They're very aesthetically pleasing, let's say, and they are really, really fluffy, especially those Emperor penguin chicks that we see in the documentaries on the ice, little grey balls of fluff. And those downy feathers are brilliant

for keeping the cold away. They're really big and fluffy, but what they're not is waterproof. And what we find is that, you know, it's great to keep the wind and the cold away, but if they go into the water with those downy feathers, then that can be fatal because they're not waterproof in the slightest.

And what happens after the chick, sort of gets to a, you know, four or five months old is it'll start to fledge and get its adult feathers through and they change and get these waterproof, sleek, black and white feathers, which the adults have. And that happens over the course of a couple of weeks at the end of the fledging season. And then they're waterproof. Do they typically just tend to have just a single chick at a time? So, again, depends on the species. No species really has more than two chicks at once. Some of the more tropical species, which, for instance, the Galapagos or the Honbott penguins, which live near the equator, where there are no real seasons, they can have

several broods a year. So they can have, on a good year, they'll have several chicks. But the big species, the kings and the emperors, they only have one chick at a time. They're much bigger, and they can really only afford to have one chick. So it's quite different. And that means that the replenishing the species is much harder for these bigger penguins. Yeah, so let's have a look at the current situation with penguin conservation. So what are we looking at? What sort of issues are we facing? Well, penguins as a family of birds are the second most endangered family after Albusross. A lot of them aren't doing very well, all of those types of penguins.

One or two, like the Gentos and the macaronis, they're the generalist penguins. They're doing okay, and their numbers are increasing. but over half of all of the other species are declining and under threat at various levels. The worst species that we think of at the moment is the African penguin. They have been really hammered. I mean, historically, you can go back and look at the trading penguins and the African or some of the South American penguins. You've got the trading eggs and hunting them for their food, for their feathers,

and even for the royal. But now it's more to do with pollution from oil spills in the case of the African penguin, overfishing and bycatch, the introduction of non-native species and habitat loss, and of course, that overarching problem of climate change. So this is really hitting many species around the world of penguins. So one sort of related to this, one thing that you mentioned I thought was interesting, considering that they seem to be so specially adapted, is that they actually evolve, genetically very slowly. So this is a big issue, isn't it, for conservation? It is, you know, one of the things I get asked. I study a lot of penguins and climate change,

and one of the questions we asked is can they adapt? And over time, the global temperatures have been higher. We've had less ice, so you would think that, well, maybe thousands of years ago, they have lived in a warmer world, and they should be able to adapt. But the changes that we're making at the moment to the climate are so rapid and so fast that they really can't adapt in time.

And as you say, for one reason or other, they've evolved very slowly, and they're the slowest biologically evolving bird of any bird. So biologically or even behaviorally, they're really going to have problems adapting to the climate change. So really, when people ask me now, if penguins can adapt, it's more a case, well, it's not so much the penguins that need to adapt. It's us that need to adapt. if we want to save the penguins.

So, yeah, let's sort of sum up by looking at some of the ways that we can be doing this, then what can we do to help penguin populations? Well, different penguins face different threats, as I've mentioned. There's problems with fishing and habitat loss. Some of these things we can do, can be done locally. And there's brilliant conservation efforts that are happening around the world for many species, which are really turning the tide for in South America, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, And that's really making a change.

But the more existential threat for some species is climate change. And that's something that you can't change on a local level. That's something that we're all culpable of. Myself, you, everybody is pumping carbon into the atmosphere through the way we heat, the way we eat, the cars we drive, the holidays we go on and things like that. So it's really thinking about how we can change. We don't have to change it completely. But little changes in some of the things that we do.

when we purchase the new car or what food we eat and things like that, can we reduce our meat intake? Can we maybe take a different holiday than the one that flies halfway around the world using your jet? Can we maybe go less using our car or transfer to electric cars and use more renewable energy? So it's down to all of us, really. I mean, we tend to think about it being a governmental problem, but governments aren't the only thing here that can help. it really is, I think, consumer power and individual power is going to be one of people power. It's going to be the one thing that changes this. People taking notice and making a difference to their lifestyles to help out is going to be one of the ways we can change that.

And we can all do that on a personal level. He wants to live in a world without penguins, after all. Well, the other thing you've got to remember is penguins are at the sharp end of this problem. We're seeing this happening now in penguins and several other species. But what's happening now with Emperor Penguins will start to happen to many other species over the next decade in 20 years' time. So penguins are really a sort of an alarm bell

for how the world's going to look over the next few decades. And if we can't save the penguins, what chance have we got for everybody else? Thank you for listening to Instant Genius, brought you from the team behind BBC Science Focus. That was Dr Peter Fretwell. To discover more about the topics we've just discussed,

check out his book, The Penguin Book of Petswomen. penguins, an expert's guide to the world's most beloved bird. If you liked what you just heard, then please do consider subscribing to Incident Genius on your preferred podcast platform. If you'd like to see our guests and hosts in person, then please also check out our YouTube channel at Science Focus. The current issue of BBC Science Focus magazine is out now.

Pick up a copy wherever you buy your favourite magazines, or download us on your app store of choice. You can also find us on Apple News or online. at sciencefocus.com. This podcast is sponsored by Name, Audio and Focal. The texture and emotional depth of music can be lost through digital sources or poor signal. Name Audio believes you can have digital precision with analog warmth.

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