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Happy World Penguin Day! What You Need To Know

By Christina St Jean
Published on: 06:20 PST, Apr 25, 2016

There seems to be a special day for virtually everything in today’s high speed 21st-century world. Why, then, should one of the shortest flightless birds be excluded from this? It is World Penguin Day, and it is time to celebrate the wonder of the penguin.

World Penguin Day coincides with the annual northward migration of penguins, which occurs every year around April 25. While January 20 is known as Penguin Awareness Day, April 25 has been dubbed World Penguin Day to celebrate the adorable birds and all that they are associated with.

Of course, computer programmers are seizing the opportunity for some software fun as they impatiently await for Google to release the next version of Penguin, their algorithm designed to better catch sites that might be spamming their search results, particularly those sites that could be buying links or getting them through link networks in order to boost Google rankings, according to SearchEngineland. Some programmers have thought it would be smart of Google to release the Penguin update on World Penguin Day.

Chron reported that there are penguins living in warm climates such as the Galapagos Islands, unlike the frigid Antarctic temperatures that the media has played up over the years. World Penguin Day also recognizes that in areas inhabited by penguins, there are no actual land predators for the animal. Most of the penguin’s enemies live in the water. Some of these enemies include sharks, seals, and skuas.

In addition, penguins have been flightless for 62 million years. While many individuals still consider the penguin to be quite adorable, one of the flightless birds are ones from New Zealand that grew to be as tall as adult humans. While such penguins are now extinct, what better time to acknowledge just how big and amazing penguins are than on World Penguin Day?

Many joke about many species of penguins having ready-made tuxedos, but in reality, the penguin’s coloring is perfect for safety in the water. The black back makes a penguin quite indistinguishable in the water, while the white front makes a penguin’s features hard to distinguish from reflected light.

World Penguin Day is also being celebrated at the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa in Maui, Hawaii. The Hyatt is, according to the L.A. Times, the only Hawaiian hotel with an on-site penguin habitat, and the African penguins that live there — Oreo, Nahu, Buddah, Zen, Mai, Tai, and Momi — range in age from 7 to 30.

The tropical heat is ideal for the jackass penguins, because it is very similar to the heat they would experience in Africa, where they are from.

World Penguin Day could not be honored appropriately without recognizing the penguins we have enjoyed on screen over the course of the last several decades. Whether it’s Mumble and Ramon from Happy Feet or the penguins from Mary Poppins, penguins have seemingly been a part of our entertainment makeup for some time. Perhaps it is because of the ready-made tuxedo — who knows?

Regardless of the reason, penguins have been recognized as being incredibly endearing for decades. It should come as no small wonder, then, that on World Penguin Day, citizens are not only recognizing the cinematic and comic book penguins so many of us have gotten familiar with over the years, but that we continue to find the various species of penguins some of the most endearing animals on the planet.

[Photo by Junko Kimura/Getty Images]

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