• Question: Why don't penguins fly? even though they have wings.

    Asked by ellie to Theo, Philip, Kerry, Ali, Alex on 17 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Alison Thomson

      Alison Thomson answered on 17 Nov 2014:

      Their wings aren’t heavy enough to carry all that weight in the air! They don’t have a need to fly, so they didn’t evolve with giant wings.

      Good question!

    • Photo: Philip Ratcliffe

      Philip Ratcliffe answered on 17 Nov 2014:

      Their wings aren’t big enough. Presumably, they’re behind other birds in the evolutionary chain, maybe they just stopped as there’s only fish where they live and flying wouldn’t help them. They do swim amazingly well though under water – almost as though they were flying-

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