In the video, the eventual winner races neck and neck with two other penguins. The three-penguin lead pack jostles for space. A large part of penguin racing appears to be strategy: when to waddle like a weird little windup toy versus coast on one\u2019s belly like a sled? Penguins can accelerate to 6kph on their bellies, but navigating difficult ground requires a combination of the two modes of transport.<\/p>\n
Penguins are even faster in water, reaching speeds<\/a> of 36kph.<\/p>\n The purpose of the race remains unclear<\/p>\n While setting the FPT on Galindez Island is a worthy goal, the exact nature of this race has not been confirmed.<\/p>\n \u201cThis trio must have had extremely important things to do,\u201d the UAE suggested. \u201cWas it krill again at a discount, or did they bring a truckload of pebbles from a neighboring island?\u201d<\/p>\n Penguins are very social birds,<\/a> nesting in large groups and often mating for life. A penguin in veterinary care at the Perth Zoo made headlines in 2021 for its investment<\/a> in watching episodes of Pingu on an iPad. And in Japan\u2019s Tobu Zoo, a penguin captured the internet\u2019s heart by apparently falling in love<\/a> with a cardboard cutout of an anime character.<\/p>\n Still, documented evidence of racing on land is a rare treat.<\/p>\n Grape-kun passed away in 2021, but he got in a lot of quality time with the love of his life before that. Photo: Phys.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A three-penguin race on Galindez Island, site of the Ukrainian Antarctic Expedition, concluded on Tuesday. The victory went…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3847],"tags":[55468,70,16,15,1717],"class_list":{"0":"post-124955","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-antarctic","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114556573014608178","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/grapekun.jpg\")
<\/p>\n