Most people have seen clips of penguins sliding along on their bellies. Maybe you have also seen "penguin fails" on YouTube where penguins fall or slip over. My short video below shows how penguins can get back up on there feet after falling or lying down.







An explanation of what the penguin is doing:

First the penguin is pushing it's feet as far forward as possible underneath it's belly. Then the penguin plants both it's flippers and it's beak against the snow and pushes itself up using it's strength (penguins have strong flippers for swimming), and the flexibility of it's neck (they are birds after all).





Do Penguins Have Knees?

It is easy to think that penguins don't have knees because they walk with such a waddle. However you may have noticed how far forward the penguin can put it's legs when it stands up - conclusive evidence that they do have knees! The penguins knees are just hidden by all of their feathers.





Penguin fails

The video below is not from our channel, but contains some amusing examples of the "penguin fails" that I mentioned above. If you watch carefully you can see other examples of how penguins stand up. Notice that some species of penguins are much more agile than others! The species that we used for our demonstration is the emperor penguin - the largest of all penguins!



