Ever wondered why the Arctic doesn’t have penguins? Ellen Husain explains <\/p>
B<\/b>esides a lone species unique to the Gal\u00e1pagos Islands<\/a> on the equator, penguins<\/a> live only in the Southern Hemisphere \u2013 everywhere from Antarctica to various remote islands and the southern coasts of Africa, Australia, New Zealand and South America.<\/strong><\/p> But why? Contrary to popular belief, they\u2019re not specifically dependent on a cold climate, but on nutrient-rich waters that sustain a productive enough food-chain to keep them in fish. In the tropical Gal\u00e1pagos and Peru<\/a><\/strong>, this is delivered by upwellings of deep oceanic water.<\/p> It\u2019s likely penguins haven\u2019t spread further north because flightlessness<\/a><\/strong> limits their ability to migrate and, moving north from here, there are vast zones of less productive tropical waters before the next big upwellings. Being ground-nesting and unable to fly, penguins are also restricted to places without land predators, so would be vulnerable in the Arctic<\/a> with its foxes<\/a>, wolves<\/a> and polar bears<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p> Ever wondered why the Arctic doesn’t have penguins? Ellen Husain explains <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":42768,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"< 1"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/10\/why-arent-there-penguins-in-the-arctic.jpg",1920,1281,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/10\/why-arent-there-penguins-in-the-arctic-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/10\/why-arent-there-penguins-in-the-arctic-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/10\/why-arent-there-penguins-in-the-arctic-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/10\/why-arent-there-penguins-in-the-arctic-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/10\/why-arent-there-penguins-in-the-arctic-1536x1025.jpg",1536,1025,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/10\/why-arent-there-penguins-in-the-arctic.jpg",1920,1281,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Ever wondered why the Arctic doesn't have penguins? Ellen Husain explains","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/42767"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Why are there no penguins in the Arctic?<\/h2>
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