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Animal profile
Aptenodytes forsteri
The emperor penguin is the largest living penguin, standing above a metre tall. It is the only bird that breeds through the Antarctic winter, incubating on sea ice rather than on land. Males carry the single egg on their feet while females return to the sea to feed.
Every other bird avoids the polar winter. Emperor penguins walk inland onto sea ice as it forms, and males incubate a single egg on their feet through months of darkness and temperatures far below freezing without eating.
The female lays a single egg and leaves for the sea. The male balances that egg on his feet under a fold of skin for around two months of darkness and storm, eating nothing, and loses a large fraction of his body mass before she returns.