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How cool is this? Supercool!
It's looks really cool, i would like to try that one day.
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You know, I was at the Shedd Aquarium this weekend, and one of the keepers was doing a presentation outside their penguin exhibit. The keeper asked, "What eats penguins?" All the kids in the (big) audience knew that leopard seals eat 'em. Me, I had no idea. Crazy.
One of the biggest disappointments of my life--up there with the death of Rufus, childhood cat--was the moment I realized that a polar bear would never eat a penguin in the wild. And probably not in captivity, either.
I mean, you see cartoons and stuff of polar bears and penguins sharing ice floes, but, really, they live on opposite sides of the world. It's like hoping for an African Lion to eat a kangaroo. Or for a giant tortoise to eat a giant panda.
A polar bear will never eat a penguin in the wild. What. A. Letdown.
Liza-It's refreshing to know that little kids are up on what actually eats penguins--I never made that particular connection (or realized the disconnect) until I was in, like, high school.
man thats sad i like penguins.... the pictures i was was coo doe it actually showed the seal eating the penguin thats crazy i would not be able to have that job trying to take pictures of crzy animals risking my life for a pictures i hope he get paied alot to do that.......
dang i would never thought that seals would do that.
Do cats eat penguins?
Hi Mason
Good question! Some parts of the world where penguins live (like Antarctica) are too cold for cats, so those penguins are probably safe from cats.
There are penguins that live in areas that could support feral (wild) cats, places like Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Africa and South America, but I bet that most penguins are probably too big for a cat to hunt—penguin species range in size from just a couple pounds to over 75 pounds! And while a ten pound cat might try for a 2 pound penguin, that 2 pound penguin probably wouldn't have much trouble slipping into the water, where the cat couldn't chase it.
But maybe a cat would eat a baby penguin. Or maybe you could put a big penguin in a blender, and chop it up enough for a cat to eat. Or you could tie a penguin down for a hungry cat.
UPDATE: wikipedia's page on the smallest penguin The Little Penguin mentions that Little Penguin colonies do best on islands without cats or foxes. I couldn't find a citation for that, but presumably that means that cats do eat very small penguins.
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