• Question: How do penguins feet not freeze when they stand on ice?

    Asked by Jasmine Y to Anna, Hayley, Iain, Rebecca on 21 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Rebecca Jones

      Rebecca Jones answered on 21 Jun 2015:

      This happens for 2 reasons:
      1. Penguins can control how much blood reaches their feet so that when it’s cold, the flow of blood is less and when it’s warm the flow is greater. We can do this too! It’s the reason are hands and feet go white when cold and pink when warm.
      2. Penguins have what are called countercurrent heat exchangers which is where hot blood vessels travelling down into the feet are next to blood vessels carrying cold blood back to the main body. However, ebcause there is such a difference in temperature the cold blood vessels absorb heat from the hot vessels, meaning little heat actually travels down to the feet.

      The penguins keep their feet a couple of degrees above freezing to minimise heat loss and avoid freezing to the ice.

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