Thursday, July 3, 2008

Puffins and Penguins


Puffins (left pic) live north of the equator along the coasts, they both dive and fly, and tend to walk like a duck (horiz. axis).
Penguins (right pic) live south of the equator along the coasts, they only dive, and tend to hop or walk (vertical axis) somewhat like a human. Some species of puffins & penguins may look similar due to eco-niche convergent parallels, but they are not closely related.

Penguin ice island, they flock tightly to avoid the seals, orcas and sharks of deep water.
http://simonc.f2o.org/south/archives/000145.php

Petrol penguins
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080718/ap_on_sc/brazil_dead_penguins_2

Why diving birds have small wings
http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/207/17/i

Penguinology (Antarctica)
http://penguinology.blogspot.com/

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thanks to jewel for noticing my marine mammal center 'penguin' t-shirt was actually a puffin t-shirt (my oops), got me checking out the difference between the two. But why does the marine mammal center feature birds anyways?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

To a marine mammalogist, available bird population may limit growth rates in interesting species.

DDeden said...

I agree with you Nathan, it just seemed funny to have puffins but no mammals on the marine mammal center tee-shirt. I visited the center last year, great place.