World Penguin Day Calls For Celebration Of The Flightless Bird

For anyone feeling like Monday's Earth Day celebrations were lacking a certain admiration for flightless, tuxedo-colored birds, you may rejoice. Today, April 25, is "World Penguin Day."

If you didn't know there was such a day, you might not be alone. But there appears to be a growing collective that is having fun with the day. (See #penguinday on Twitter.)

According to the Ian Somerhalder Foundation, penguin day got its start at the McMurdo Station in Antarctica , when researchers there noticed that April 25 of every year was when a colony of Adelie penguins returned to the continent after spending months at sea. They observed the phenomenon for seven years in a row before deciding to plan for the penguin's arrival and make a celebration out of their appearance. There is no clear record of what year Word Penguin Day started, but celebratory events have been traced back to at least 2007.

In recent years documentaries like "March of the Penguins" and the BBC series "Spy in the Huddle" have captured public affection for the little tuxedoed birds.

The (perhaps unofficial) website WorldPenguinDay.com suggests celebrating the day with the following tips: "Find out more about penguins, explore what others have to say about penguins, tell your friends about penguins, send a penguin ecard, play penguin games and share the penguin love!"

For anyone wanting to get involved in the worldwide effort to protect penguins and their habitats, Greenpeace has loads of useful information here. 

A few fun penguin facts:

• There are currently 17 species of penguins living throughout the world.
• Penguins can spend up to 75% of their lives in the water.
• Some penguin species only leave the water during molting or breeding. 
• Emperor penguins are the largest of the penguin species, they can stand more than 3 feet a high and weigh more than 40 kilograms (98 lb).