It has been a long day, and Professor Ceiling Cat is dispirited. This calls for both a penguin and a cat. The penguin’s first.
Matthew Cobb sent me this tw**t from “General bollocks” which included a funny flash video of a penguin (I think it’s an Adelie) attacking a man. The penguin is so aggressive that the man stumbles backwards and falls. I couldn’t find a way to include the flash (you can see the original here), but of course I found the very short video of the penguin attack is on YouTube (below).
I’d love to be attacked by a penguin, for my second Big Dream (beyond petting a baby tiger or lion) is to visit the Antarctic. I have swum with penguins in the Galápagos, but have never encountered them on land. And besides, swimming with penguins entails this: watching a dark shape, followed by a stram of bubbles, zip by so fast you can’t see what it is.
“Brother Maynard! Bring up the Holy Hand Grenade!”
“I’d love to attacked by a penguin” might be one of the funniest lines I’ve read this year.
😀
Burgess Meredith or Danny Devito?
I think it is an Adelie, mainly because the head is completely black – the low resolution doesn’t help. I also considered Gentoo and Chinstrap, but they have white markings near the eyes and “chin” respectively. Also, I’d guess the location is on an ice shelf adjacent Antarctica. I don’t think Gentoos and Chinstraps usually nest that far south – but I’m a bit out of touch now.
I’ve seen two grown men wrestling with an adult Emperor Penguin that didn’t want to be caught – might have been in an Attenborough doco. Now that would be a challenge.
Hi Jerry, you should come to South Africa for a holiday. You could hug a lion cub, and swim with the African Penguins at their colony on a beach outside Cape Town. I don’t swim, but it’s great fun just to walk on the beach with them.
Damn I was going to suggest Jerry come to Melbourne (Australia, not Florida) where I can take him to see Fairy Penguins, we have a colony on the beach right near the city, but you’ve trumped me with the lion cub, can’t manage that. We do have the opportunity to sit with Meerkats at the Melbourne Zoo though. Nearly as good as petting lion cubs isn’t it? No I didn’t think so. 🙁
Near Oudtshoorn (in SA) you can not only pet great cats, but there is a colony of wild meerkats you can observe with biologist Ian Mc Ilrath. Called Meerkat Magic.
You get there before sunrise and follow them a whole morning.
Exhilarating.
The penguins at Boulders near Simonstown let you approach them to about a meter, just like the dassies there.
Of course, you’ve got marsupials, you trump us there.
I plan on visiting every continent before I kick off, and the only ones I haven’t been to yet are Africa and Antarctica.
A couple of years ago when I was in Australia I was lucky enough to see the Phillip Island “penguin parade” (http://www.penguins.org.au/attractions/penguin-parade/). You can’t interact directly with them but you can get pretty close, and man are they noisy!
Ha ha I loved the attacking penguin!
Great animals, penguins, two of ‘their kind’ were on the Ark, and after the Flood returned to their places of origin either on land bridges or on mats of floating vegetation and changed back into their various species. But they did this without evolution. Do not underestimate penguins!
Reminds me of this clip with David Atterborough, where basically the same happens except the bird in question is a capercaillie.
I apologize, I did not intend to embed the video.
so basically penguins are just well-dressed geese then?