How do penguins avoid freezing their feet when it gets very cold?
Penguins are very well adapted to life in the cold. Like species of animals that live in the Arctic, Antarctic penguins possess a protein (which I like to call the “antifreeze protein”) in the skin of their feet. This protein prevents the formation of ice crystals in their tissue, which protects them from chilblain. Like the carpenter who lives in a run-down house I, who study how animals adapt to the cold, and who discovered this protein in birds’ feet…I like the cold, but my feet are always frozen!