The feathers work almost like a dry suit. Trapping a layer of air to insulate their bodies and keep them exceptionally warm, even as they swim into water that’s below freezing temps.
They can’t dive as deep though. Air is compressibly by the quickly increasing water pressure, so the cold will sap their body heat faster as a penguin dives deeper.
Fat isn’t compressible, so seals don’t suffer the same problem.
I knew they were birds so of course they have feathers but for some reasons I thought they would look more like seals with lots of fat.
They have that too, but less of it.
The feathers work almost like a dry suit. Trapping a layer of air to insulate their bodies and keep them exceptionally warm, even as they swim into water that’s below freezing temps.
They can’t dive as deep though. Air is compressibly by the quickly increasing water pressure, so the cold will sap their body heat faster as a penguin dives deeper.
Fat isn’t compressible, so seals don’t suffer the same problem.
How disrespectful to yoga pants
It’s true though, the pants can push it into a different shape, but not make it smaller.
If the water is bellow freezing temps wouldn’t that mean that the water is ice? Or can it go bellow freezing in the ocean because of the salt?
Yes.
Ocean water can also be supercritical. You can find videos on youtube of under-ice water flash-freezing out from a nucleation site.