Photographer Kike Calvo shares fun, curious and weird facts about penguins living in the frozen ice in Antarctica.

Imagine being a penguin for a day.
Can you?
We all know it is hard to be angry
when looking at a penguin.
But lets venture
into a life-changing Youtube experience.

Let’s picture ourselves embodied in a penguin,
a flightless seabird with
a reputation of being happy.
I am not sure if this will
be effective empathy, or cognitive.
But for now, let’s disregard
Frans de Waal’s essay on
“The Evolution of Empathy”,
and just use our imagination.
It is a sunny day here in Antarctica,
and we are a penguin.

Penguins usually live in places
free of land predators. And that is
a good thing because they would
be defenseless in their presence.
Their eggs
and chicks succumb to the determination
of giant petrels and skuas.
But in general, healthy adult
penguins don’t have natural
predators on land.

But our happy friends need to do
the antarctic plonge in search of food.
And those ventures into the liquid element can
be life-threatening, as penguins are hunted
in the ocean by orcas and leopard seals.

On land, the adorable penguins
are champions at projectile pooping,
reaching 4 feet.
Scientists at the Department
of Natural Science at Kochi University
in Japan calculated that the pressure
generated in the rectums of pooping
penguins was as much as 28.2 kilopascals.
And that is a very strong pressure.
That sends their bombs flying at
speeds of nearly 5 miles per hour.

And while penguins can’t officially fly,
in a sense they really do fly
through the water.
Their bodies are streamlined.
Their strong wings and strong
pectoral muscles power them
like the best Olympic swimmers.

So the next time you are off
to an aquarium, remember to pay
the proper respect to these animals
equipped with fusiform bodies and the
greatest of energies.