When they are not at sea, they live on the sea ice. Mostly, they catch fish. Emperor penguins1 diet consists of fish, squid, and crustaceans. Although they can only swim between 3 and 5 miles per hour, they are agile and quite skilled at catching their dinner. Since they are at sea for months at a time, Emperor penguins distill their own fresh water, using special nasal glands located right above their eyes.
Penguins dive hundreds of times a day.
These dives take them all the way to the sea floor, and are called benthic dives. They do this to gather tiny stones which they feed to baby penguins as gastric stones, which aid in digestion. When penguins move underwater, their heart rate drops to 5 or 6 beats per minute. This enables them to make those deep dives, and to remain underwater for up to 20 minutes. One special adaptation that allows the Emperor penguin to survive the Antarctic s brutal environment is their feathers.