Millions of years ago penguins did in fact fly around like regular birds but they have evolved to swim instead of fly.
Eventually, flying was no longer necessary.
Penguins spent most of their time in the water, and did not have any predators on land that would require airborne escape.
Wings for flight became flipper-like water wings, which enabled penguins to move through water efficiently and with great speed.
Penguins can swim underwater up to 25 mph, popping up into the air every minute or so to take in some air.
Penguins are superbly adapted to aquatic life, and penguins are astonishingly agile in the water.
Swimming penguins look very similar to birds flying in the air.
One Comment
I have been enjoying this site quite a bit with all the random facts, but I would encourage you to pull this article or at least amend it to what we can all agree to as facts.
How can you or I say penguins did “in fact” fly? Were you there when they flew? Do you know anyone who was there? I admit it’s easy, albeit lazy, to extrapolate too far from what we observe to what we imagine could have been. Let’s all be a little more careful claiming things as fact that we have no evidence for, Ok? Why should we do this, to learn truth and not repeat fiction as truth.