Emperor Penguin

The **Emperor Penguin** appeared in 2015 videogame called *Kemono Friends*. The Emperor Penguin is a type of Friend that appeared in all Kemono Friends media to date. They have been featured as a member of the Penguins Performance Project in all its iterations with nickname **Emperor**.

Emperor Penguin has medium-sized black hair with a few strands of orange hair in the middle, to mimic beak of the real emperor penguin. She wears a pair of headphones like all fellow PPP members, with hers following black and orange color pattern of her hair.

She wears an open, black jacket with the orange shoulders. The sleeves end in gloves that covers her whole hand, similarly to wings, like all other penguin characters. She also wears a white leotard underneath the jacket. A part of her that stands out among penguins is that she wears a pair of long white socks, accompanied with a pair of black boots.

The emperor penguin is the largest and heaviest of all penguin species, they stand up to 114cm (45 inches) tall and weigh up to 30kg (66 pounds). The emperor penguin has a striking and distinguished appearance that has become emblematic of penguins on whole. They are social animals who forage and nest in groups. They are excellent swimmers and can reach speeds of up to 3.4 meters per second while swimming. They breed almost exclusively in extreme conditions on sea ice and are one of, if not the only bird that will never set foot on land. Their breeding season starts during the winter and takes place on the open sea ice, during this time they face temperatures as low as -60°C (-76°F) and winds up to 200 km/h (124 mph). Very few animals go through such extremes to give birth to their young.

During the mating season emperor penguins gather into a large colony to raise their eggs. In 2014, it was estimated that around 595,000 penguins gathered in 44 different colonies each year. After an egg has been laid the females leave for four months to hunt for food such as krill and squid while the males incubate the egg and endure the winter and keep the egg warm. Male emperor penguins are unique from other penguins in that they do not sit on their egg, instead they balance them on their feet and cover them in a feathered skin pouch called a brood pouch. During this time they huddle together for warmth and spend most of their time asleep; it is not uncommon for a male emperor penguin to sleep more than 20 hours a day in order to conserve energy. If the chick hatches before the mother returns the male emperor penguin feeds it a secretion of protein and fat produced from the male's esophagus. This ability to produce "milk" is unique to emperor penguins, pigeons, and flamingos. By the time the female has returned with food and the egg has hatched the male will have lost 40% of his body weight and have fasted on average 115 days.

The emperor penguin has no set nest during its incubation period, so when the mother returns they rely on complex vocal calls from their mate for identification. These vocal calls are known for using two frequency bands simultaneously. This call is distinct enough for the female to be able to tell where her mate and chick are in the colony of penguins. The parents then take turns either spending time at sea hunting or watching after their chick. This continues until the chick is about 150 days old, after it is abandoned by its parents to survive on its own.

Emperor penguins, like all other penguins, have a variety of predators to watch out for. Birds such as the Antarctic giant petrels and Antarctic skuas have been known to prey on chicks in colonies and Leopard seals attack chicks after they have molted and are entering the sea for the first time. Killer whales are a natural predator to all emperor penguins.