Penguins!

Don’t you just hate it when you learn something new and feel like the biggest idiot in the world for not knowing it sooner? Yea, me too. I just found out last week that there are penguins in Africa! Penguins! In Africa, people! How could I not have known this?

I went to the Newport Aquarium in Newport, KY (which is really Cincinnati) to celebrate a friend’s birthday and we all got tickets to go behind the scenes and actually play with three of the penguins who live there - Paula, Simon, and Randy. We spent about half an hour with the little cuties, a once in a lifetime opportunity. Paula bit me but I forgave her ‘cuz she’d had Simon on her ass all day.

I noticed right away that there was no snow or ice anywhere in their pen, and it was warm. Well, that’s because this species of penguin comes from the southern coast of Africa. Their bray sounds just like a donkey’s, which is what led them to originally be named Jackass Penguins. Poor things! Thankfully someone had the good sense to rename them the Blackfooted Penguins. And get this...the pattern of spots on their bodies is unique to every penguin, just like human fingerprints. These little guys were way cool.