Cute Looking Chick Thieves

When a Mother Penguin loses her chick, she’ll often try to steal from other female penguins living in the vicinity.

Penguins are cute and cuddly birds that live in the southern part of our globe, many of them in Antarctica. They are categorized as birds but they cannot fly. In fact, they are two legged and walk upright. There are many astonishing habits of penguins that are recorded and observed by zoologists, but perhaps the most amazing trait of female penguins is that they sometimes try to steal the chicks of other female penguins if they’ve lost theirs. Attempting to steal the chick is normally met with failure as other female penguins stay pretty close to their offspring and are aware of the possible dangers that surround their chicks.

Getting their hands on other chicks isn’t much of a feat for these fellers, as penguins tend to live and interact in large colonies. The fact mentioned above, was fortunately recorded on camera in a famous documentary called “March of Penguins” which showed a female penguin losing her eggs during a blizzard, who then tries to lessen her grief by stealing a chick from another penguin! An even more astounding scene was when the robbed mother cried in despair, other penguins prevented the affected mother from losing her chick as they defended the theft.

That particular zoologist and the world were overcome with amazement as this unprecedented nature of the penguin’s community was unfolded. Previously, such levels of cooperation were seen in bees, monkeys and ants, but to see such a traumatizing behaviour among these adorable species is just tremendous.