Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with penguins

Help me fulfill my penguin dreams!

youcancallmeal — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:45:39 -0800

Help me feed my penguin addiction! I love all things penguin. I have two pairs of penguin pajama pants, a couple of pairs of penguin socks, a pair of penguin boots from Doc Marten and a penguin beanie baby. What else should I have? Cool > cutesy. For the sake of this question, let's say that price is no object.

Clothes, art, stickers, shoes, food all acceptable. What have I not thought of?

Buries It.

ajackson — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:14:01 -0800

Anyone know why "Buries It" is one of Mario Lemieux's nicknames, and the source of where it started?

A story of infelicitous penguin-naming

Ms. Saint — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:22:15 -0800

Did ever a saint baptize some penguins? At the end of the second lecture of How to Do Things with Words, J. L. Austin writes, "When the saint baptized the penguins, was this void because the procedure of baptizing is inappropriate to be applied to penguins, or because there is no accepted procedure of baptizing anything except humans?"

There are no other references to the penguin-baptizing saint in Austin, nor have I ever met anyone who had any clue what this is about, nor have I been able to find anything on Google about it.

Was this just a quirky example of Austin's own imagination, or is there some story related to it?

What do penguins taste like?

pwf — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 22:39:24 -0800

Kind of a weird question, but... what does penguin taste like? I'm not asking for speculation, I'm wondering if anyone has really, truly tasted penguin.

penguin-human relations

leapingsheep — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 07:47:11 -0800

Is there a Jane Goodall of penguins? There is a special feature on the March of the Penguins DVD that documents the story of the people who spent a year filming the penguins. There was a brief part that showed the penguins coming up to the camera and the very large humans who were three times their heights with no fear at all. They wanted to check out the camera, so they went and examined it. There is another part where one man walkes past the group of penguins and they barely notice (though they turn their heads a second later because they heard the ice moving). I googled a little bit to try to find more stories of penguin-human interaction in the wild, but I find only short anecdotes. Is there any longer, more in depth book or documentary detailing interactions between humans and free penguins?

I sincerely hope that if aliens decide to land here and check out the wildlife, they meet the penguins before they meet the humans.

Why do female penguins attempt to steal young?

nev — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:54:21 -0800

Selfish penguin theory: I just saw March of the Penguins and observed the chick-stealing behavior. How is this at all adaptive? I know that offspring theft occurs in other species, but it seems that selfish gene theory would predict that this behavior become extinguished fast. The "mother" will spend a great deal of resources raising a chick that has none of her genes, at risk to her life and ability to reproduce next season. Yet the behavior (in Emperor penguins, anyway) is common enough that other females recognize and attempt to prevent the theft. How is this explained in terms of evolutionary biology?

Why are there red penguins in Venice?

woj — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 19:21:25 -0800

We recently returned from a visit to Venice, Italy. Whilst on a vaporetto travelling the Grand Canal, we noticed many balconies sporting red penguin statues.... Unfortunately, we were only stopping over in Venice for the day, so we never discovered the significance of the penguins. I tried googling a few things, but so far it remains a mystery. Can anyone explain the red penguins of Venice?

Thanks!