Penguins normally have very sleek feathers designed to allow them to swim very fast. King Penguin chicks, however, do not need to swim as their parents fetch all their food for them. What they do need is to keep warm, so their feathers are brown and woolly, not at all like their adult feathers. For this reason, early antarctic explorers wrongly decided that they were a separate species from their parents and christened them "woolly penguins". <ref>http://www.siec.k12.in.us/~west/proj/penguins/king.html</ref> | Penguins normally have very sleek feathers designed to allow them to swim very fast. King Penguin chicks, however, do not need to swim as their parents fetch all their food for them. What they do need is to keep warm, so their feathers are brown and woolly, not at all like their adult feathers. For this reason, early antarctic explorers wrongly decided that they were a separate species from their parents and christened them "woolly penguins". <ref>http://www.siec.k12.in.us/~west/proj/penguins/king.html</ref> |