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Susan McCarthy is co-author with Marjorie Ingall of Sorry, Sorry, Sorry: The Case for Good Apologies. Ingall & McCarthy write Sorrywatch.com, a website which analyzes apologies. McCarthy also writes about wildlife and animal behavior. She’s co-author of the international bestseller When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals, and author of Becoming a Tiger: How Baby Animals Learn to Live in the Wild. Not literally raised by wolves, McCarthy lives in San Francisco.

Looking good, eventually

February 9, 2016

Grownup Adélie penguins look sharp.

A young Adélie is covered with uniform dark-gray fuzz the color of an average rock. It is also shaped like an average rock. When it's tiny it is under its mother's or father's warm pouched-out stomach. When you first see them it's as if the parent was sitting on one or two large gray fur eggs.

It grows fast. When it's a little bigger, it lies on the ground and stuffs its head underneath its father's or mother's warm stomach.

It keeps growing fast. Soon it can't even hide its head under its parent and it has to stand around. It may huddle against a parent or against another gray fuzzy chick.

If it snows, they might catch snowflakes. I think this must be the way they'll catch krill when they're older.

Clip128 (1) from Susan McCarthy on Vimeo.

(It's cold.)

Now it's not growing bigger so much as it's growing a suit of legitimate penguin plumage underneath the fuzz. When it has the right outfit it will be able to swim underwater in the icy sea and not get soggy or chilled. In the meantime it stands around on the rocks amid puddles of guano.

It needs to get rid of the fuzz by preening it off. This produces a patchy piebald creature with tufty places where the fluff hasn't been preened off. Often filthy as well as patchy.