Meet the Real Penguins brings you the wonderful diversity of penguins from all over the Southern Hemisphere. It shows what makes them different and what they all share in common; the dilemma of a life lived between sea and land.

The secret underwater life of all penguins is compared with the fascination diversity of their lives ashore, where they’re found from the mysterious Galapagos Islands to the rocky shores and windswept tussocks of the subantarctic; from the cool rainforests of New Zealand to the sun-baked coasts of Chile; huddling in the blizzards of Antarctica and nesting under houses in the capital city of New Zealand.

This is also an exploration of the problems faced by any penguin as it finds a place to breed ashore, finds a mate and works to bring food from the sea to feed it chicks. The penguins of the world meet all these challenges, each in their own way, making this one of the most successful and widely spread birds on the planet. The climax is the supreme achievement of emperor penguins who go without food through the Antarctic winter, huddling together in the long polar night to brood their eggs on their feet. Finally, like all penguins, they return to the oceans to resume their lives as superb undersea predators.