2683: Penguins Aren’t Who They Say They Are Apr 25, 2024

The word ‘penguin’ is most likely a word of Welsh origin, but given that penguins don’t live in the northern hemisphere, and Welsh presence did not tend to spread very far—though they were eventually in Patagonia—and that this term dates from the 16th century, it does raise an obvious question of why. Strengthening this question is that the Welsh “pen gwyn” means “white head” which penguins famously don’t have. This is because the term originally referred to another bird that was ecologically, but not taxonomically similar: the now-extinct great auk. The great auk also didn’t have a white head but a distinctive white patch on the forehead, and otherwise resembled penguins in appearance and ecological niche fairly closely, but in the northern hemisphere. With their nests on the ground and far more predators and habitat loss in the arctic region compared to the antarctic region, they became extinct in the mid-19th century, but there were a few centuries when the Welsh “pen gwyn” and “pengwin” were known about simultaneously.