Why Do Penguins Have Wings If They Can't Fly? (Answered)

Last updated on October 15th, 2022 at 03:04 pm

All eighteen kinds of penguins are non-flying birds, even though they all have wings. However, these birds make great swimmers.

Penguins have wings because the wings help them swim swiftly through the water. They move like flippers, propelling them as they swim and turning to change direction whenever necessary. Furthermore, their wings also help them catch prey and get away from predators while swimming.

Table of Contents

• What Penguins Use Their Wings For
• Why Penguins Can’t Fly
  • Birds Are Built for Flight
  • Penguins Are Built for Swimming
• Other Flightless Birds
• Other Animals That Use Flippers
  • Cetaceans
  • Pinnipeds
• Sources

What Penguins Use Their Wings For

Penguins are mostly water-dwelling animals; they spend 75-80% of their lives in the ocean and only spend time on land to rest, mate, and lay eggs. 

Streamlined bodies help to reduce drag and help penguins glide through the water quickly.

They can survive the depths of the ocean by using oxygen very efficiently and breathing infrequently.

Plus, they can regulate their body temperature by constricting and dilating their blood vessels. 

Their wings, like the rest of their bodies, have adapted to life in the water.

Penguins use their wings to help them swim through the water.

The wings act as paddles that can rotate in different directions, making it easier for the birds to swim after their prey and escape their predators.

Why Penguins Can’t Fly

Some scientists believe penguins have existed for 22 million years, and from their earliest days until now, they’ve been flightless birds who thrive in the water. 

Penguins’ bodies aren’t designed for flight. Their bones are heavy, and their wings aren’t shaped like other birds’ wings. 

Instead, they’re shaped like flippers, and they’re best used in the water, which is where they spend most of their time anyway.

Birds Are Built for Flight

Bird wings are curved on top and flat underneath, making the air move more quickly above the wing.

This creates a difference in air pressure that pulls the bird upward, just like airplane wings.

When birds flap their wings, they push the air back and move forward. By turning its wings, a bird can change direction in the air. 

Birds also have hollow bones that make them extra light, making it easier for them to stay in the air.

Penguins Are Built for Swimming

Penguins are built for life in the water and on land, not life in the air.

Where other birds have air-filled bones, penguins have dense bones that would be very difficult to lift in the air.

Their wings are also shorter and stiffer than other birds’ wings, which is great for swimming but not flying.

Another big reason penguins aren’t made for flight is their natural habitat.

Penguins rely on the ocean as a food source, so their bodies are built to move quickly and effectively through the water.

Other Flightless Birds

There are over 60 species of non-flying birds alive today, including penguins. These birds all have wings, even though they don’t use them to fly. These birds include:

1. Steamer Ducks: Three out of four species of steamer ducks are flightless. They are too heavy to get in the air, despite having wings. They use their wings in territorial displays and fights. 
2. Weka: Weka are brown birds about the size of chickens, native to New Zealand. While they don’t fly, they are adept swimmers.
3. Ostriches: The ostrich is the largest living bird, growing up to nine feet tall and often weighing more than 300 pounds (136.08 kg). They’re too heavy to fly, but they can run fast, up to 45 miles (72.42 km) per hour.
4. Kiwis: All five species of kiwi have vestigial wings, meaning that they’re present but not used. Their wings are leftover byproducts of evolution, a characteristic they inherited from ancestors who did use them.
5. Kakapos: The kakapo is a kind of parrot similar in shape to a penguin. Being the heaviest parrot in the world, it isn’t able to fly. But this bird has an impressive voice that can be heard up to half a mile away.
6. Takahes: The takahe is a mid-sized bird from New Zealand with colorful plumage. It’s so rare that it was once assumed to be extinct. However, it was seen in the wild in 1948 for the first time since the late 1800s.
7. Cassowaries: The cassowary is a large bird. The only bird larger and heavier than a cassowary is the ostrich. For this reason and due to the shape of its wings, the cassowary is a flightless bird.
8. Lesser Rheas: Native to South America, the lesser rhea, or Darwin’s rhea, looks like an ostrich but is much smaller. On average, the lesser rhea is about three feet (one meter) tall. 
9. Greater Rheas: Greater rheas are the largest birds in the Americas. They look similar to an ostrich and are very fast, reaching 21 miles (35 km) per hour when running.
10. Domestic Turkeys: Domestic turkeys are unable to fly because they are bred to be so heavy. Wild turkeys, by contrast, can fly.
11. Emu: Emus, native to Australia, are very similar to ostriches. They run very fast, up to 29 miles (48 km) per hour, and their small wings stabilize them while they’re running.

Other Animals That Use Flippers

Animals that use flippers include penguins, cetaceans, such as whales and dolphins, and pinnipeds, such as sea lions and seals.

All of these animals spend a significant portion of their lives in the water and use their flippers to help them in various ways.

Cetaceans

Cetaceans include whales, porpoises, and dolphins.

These animals share many traits with mammals and fishes, including breathing air, making milk, and living in the water. 

Cetaceans use their flippers as guides, moving them up and down as they swim through the water.

Pinnipeds

Pinnipeds include mammals with flippers, which they use both in the water and on land.

Examples include the California sea lion, the harbor seal, the Northern elephant seal, and the Steller sea lion.

Pinnipeds use their front flippers in a rowing motion as a way of propelling themselves forward through the water.

And on land, some, like the seal, use both their bellies and their front flippers to creep forward in a wriggling and pulling motion. 

Other pinnipeds, like sea lions, can use both front and back flippers to walk on land in a kind of waddling motion.

Pinnipeds use their back flippers to propel themselves, too, moving them back and forth like a fish’s tail.

Sources

• The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds: How Wings Work 
• NPR: The Evolutionary History of Penguins Is Far from Black and White
• The Whale Trail: Seals and Sea Lions