King penguin skeleton

The king penguin is the second largest penguin in the world. Like all penguin species, it is one of the species of flightless birds. Among its characteristic physical features are its legs positioned towards the rear of its body, which contributes to the typical upright posture on land, and its wings that have been transformed into rigid flippers comprising compressed, solid bones. The bone tissue is dense and thus heavy. The animal hardly experiences buoyancy in the water. Their evolved physique makes the king penguin perfectly adapted to the water and using its prodigious swimming and diving skills, literally »flies« at its prey in depths up to 300 meters. This skeleton of a king penguin was added to the Zoological Collection at the Museum Natur und Mensch (Museum of Nature and Man) at the beginning of the 20th century.