March of the Penguins Trivia Quiz

Answer: March

Hence the title of the film, "March of the Penguins". Ah, the charm of English homonyms.

The penguins' journey may be as long as seventy miles, and may last for a week of nonstop walking over ice - an awkward journey for a bird that cannot fly and is far more at home in the water than on Terra Firma.

Answer: True

The emperor penguins' nesting ground is consistent year after year, but the route has been known to change based on ice shifts and other environmental concerns, so when this "ice slide" occurs is individual between groups - though the penguins in one group typically all do so at the same time. How the penguins navigate is not known for certain - in essence, there is less doubt about the whys and wherefores of subatomic particles than there is about the motivations behind the emperor penguins' annual migration.

Answer: False

As "March of the Penguins" narrator Morgan Freeman puts it, "Emperor penguins are monogamous...sort of. They mate with only one partner a year, which means that at the start of each new season, all bets are off." Since there are typically more females at the mating ground than males, female penguins will often interrupt courtships and fight with other female penguins. The males, to human eyes, seem quite disaffected by the whole thing.

Answer: They huddle together in a collective mass, forming a living field of black across the ice.

During the Antarctic winter, which coincides with the summer months of the Northern Hemisphere, the penguins will go days without glimpsing daylight. As the weather grows steadily colder (right around the Northern Summer Solstice), the females have their eggs. I hesitate to say "lay", since the egg never departs from penguin care - if a mated pair drops their egg, the ritual is finished, and they return to the ocean, the march wasted.

Answer: False

In fact, the father penguin tucks the egg between his claws and belly for over two months while the mother goes to forage food for herself and the chick to come. It is a rough process for both parents. The mother, nearly starving, has to negotiate Antarctica to return to the ocean and feed, while the father, by the end of the process, will have gone four months without food in the lethal polar winter. They stay in the huddle they were in while waiting for the eggs to be laid, rotating in and out of the center to equalize chances of survival.

Answer: Leopard seals

Krill and squid are generally prey for penguins, while polar bears live only in northern polar regions at the opposite end of the Earth from the tuxedoed avians. If you ever see a photo of polar bears and emperor penguins together, chances are that it was taken somewhere like Omaha's Henry Dorley Zoo as opposed to the wild. Leopard seals, on the other hand, are glad to feast on the unfortunate mother, whose death means that her chick this season will also mostly likely perish.

Answer: By sound - the female trumpets her unique call, and the male responds with his.

This unique "heart song" was the basis of the Disney film "Happy Feet", though it must be emphasized that emperor penguins rarely choose tap dancing over singing as that movie's protagonist does; these amazing animals actually seem quite adept at both song and dance in "March of the Penguins"!

Answer: False

In fact, the male penguins continue to shelter their offspring, sometimes for weeks after hatching, until the mothers return home from feeding. The chicks are then passed back to their mothers, who continue to protect them in the space between belly and feet. Eventually, the chicks become accustomed to synching the movements of their feet with those of their mothers', finally being able to walk on their own for short stretches, though they still huddle under mama's belly in winter storms. All through this time, the chicks are fed by their mothers' regurgitations.

In sum, it takes a good deal of time for new chicks to achieve any sort of independence - they are much more like kangaroos or other marsupials in this regard than species like horses whose newborn young are more independent.

Answer: Try to steal another chick

Regardless of her attempt, however, the other females of the group will usually prevent the bereaved mother from taking another chick. The example in "March of the Penguins" showed a half-dozen females fighting off the accosting mourner.

Answer: No

The emperor penguin does not reach maturity until the age of five. Until then, they live primarily in the ocean, feeding and playing, probably never seeing their parents again. When they mature, the new generation will return to the same nesting ground where they were born. Though the exact mechanism of how the penguins find this area is not precisely known, solar orientation is strongly suspected. Beyond that, it is also notable that this nesting ground is far enough from the liquid ocean for new chicks to be safe from falling through the ice, yet close enough for the chicks to make the trek to the water in the warmer months after the ice has retreated inland.

As always, I'd love to hear any comments you might have, especially those that will make this a better quiz. Thanks for playing.