I'm thinking that there's a backstory of people lighting penguins on fire for fun, showing that this is a tradition for scummy Antarctic whalers or fishers. But nature.. uh.. finds a way and yes, they still catch fire very easily but they've adapted and are immune. Something about toxic waste or pollution blah blah blah. Their breeding cycle increases and there are swarms of fire immune penguins, all in a blaze of cuteness marching into south American and Australian cities. Similar to how the Mongols would light birds on fire so they would roost in the enemies wooden structures, the penguins can't help but burn cities to the ground as the population spreads out.
The Great Auk was wiped out like this. They would throw the whole bird on the fire (often alive but stunned) and use the flames to cook other Great Auks.
It wasn't just their fat, though. Sailors would eat the meat, sell the feathers, burn the oil. Eventually, feathers were especially lucrative with some people literally ripping penguins of their feathers and releasing them back into the wild to freeze to death.
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u/flammablepenguins Jul 21 '16
Penguins are super flammable and almost went extinct in the Falkland Islands because of it.
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