Penguins
feed on fish, cuttlefish, crustaceans, and
other small sea animals. They are found in
flocks even at sea. On land the colonies often
number in the hundreds of thousands. Natural
enemies of the penguin include leopard seals,
killer whales, and, in the case of young chicks
and eggs, skuas.
At
the mating season the penguins of the Antarctic
region appear along desolate, ice-bound, or
rocky coasts and hop, jump, waddle, and toboggan
toward favored breeding sites. In many of
these areas smooth paths have been worn over
hard rock formations by countless generations;
the birds use precisely the same paths as
their antecedents to approach the rookery.
