In 2018, Jamie Hayes was on a family vacation to the sub-Antarctic islands when she stumbled upon the most emo thing she’d ever seen. A teenage penguin at an uncomfortable stage of molting stood out like a sore thumb among the natural beauty.
“The chicks don’t swim until after they molt,” Hayes told The Dodo, “and this guy evidently got wetter than he’d expected to.” “He just provided this really hilarious, anthropomorphic feeling of a person heading home to maybe change clothes after a really awful day.”
Hayes said, “I could definitely sympathize.”
The parent of the juvenile penguin didn’t appear too pleased, either.
Hayes had never seen a penguin-like that before this trip. But, all of a sudden, they began following her around.
“One of the colonies we visited had almost 100,000 king penguins,” Hayes added. “The chicks were molting their ‘woolly’ feathers at various stages. Some, like this man, still had all of their newborn fuzz, while others had quite amusing patches that looked like chest wigs… some even had odd mohawks.”
Unfortunately for penguins, the process of shedding their newborn fluff can be analogous to human adolescence in terms of embarrassment. According to Britannica, the king penguin is the world’s second-largest penguin and is “marked by its stately, erect stance, long beak, and vibrant color” — something this teen penguin was still working on.
Penguin babies are coated in dense, brown feathers until they are 10 to 12 months old when they begin to molt. Sleek black feathers on their backs, white feathers on their chests, and orange feathers on their ears and necks gradually replace their newborn feathers. In the frigid ocean waters, these impermeable adult feathers and the blubber beneath them keep them warm.
While Hayes and her family saw some spectacular wildlife on their trip, years later, the grumpy young penguin is still one of the highlights.
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