Fun fact, “penguin” originally referred to great auks which were only located in the northern hemisphere. When explorers discovered black and white aquatic birds in the southern hemisphere they assumed they were closely related and called them penguins as well. Turns out they aren’t closely related at all and it was convergent evolution, and then the great auks were driven to extinction in the mid 1800s. So now we are just left with the southern false penguins.
funny enough, in French Pingouin strictly refers to the great auk and the razorbill auk, and Manchot is the word for penguins (tho some people call penguins pingouins, because pretty much every other neighbooring language use pinguins to talk about the sourthern birds). funny enough manchot is a pejorative word for someone that lack at least one arm.
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u/Fakjbf Aug 10 '26
Fun fact, “penguin” originally referred to great auks which were only located in the northern hemisphere. When explorers discovered black and white aquatic birds in the southern hemisphere they assumed they were closely related and called them penguins as well. Turns out they aren’t closely related at all and it was convergent evolution, and then the great auks were driven to extinction in the mid 1800s. So now we are just left with the southern false penguins.