• Question: How fast do penguins swim?

    Asked by anon-193505 to Morwenna, Jamal, iainstaniland, Heidi, Emma, Carl on 13 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Iain Staniland

      Iain Staniland answered on 13 Nov 2018:

      Penguins are brilliant swimmers and having been lucky enough to see them underwater they look like jet fighters able to change direction very quickly.
      an average swimming speed for most types of penguin is somewhere between 4-7 miles per hour but all can go much faster for short periods if they need to, e.g catching food or escaping predators. Gentoo penguins are one of the fastest species and have been recorded swimming at 22mph. The fastest a human has swum is around 5 mph!

    • Photo: Emma Crawford

      Emma Crawford answered on 13 Nov 2018:

      I’ve seen them swim quite fast to catch fish at feeding time when I’ve been to the zoo. But I’ve never had the opportunity to time them!

    • Photo: Heidi Gardner

      Heidi Gardner answered on 13 Nov 2018:

      Good question! I think Iain’s answer covers this – I found his answer really interesting 🙂
      Penguins wings have sort of adapted to act more like flippers so they are much better swimmers than us humans are.

Comments