Family Life
The time of year breeding occurs.
What is winter into early spring?
The reason chicks stop being fed by their parents after 2 months.
AAQ's breeding season
What AAQ's incubator time is useful for
The reasons the biologists taking over chick rearing after about 3 weeks & until they are juveniles is helpful.
What is "this gives caretakers time to bond with the chick and teach them important aquarium life skills, including hand feeds, voluntarily stepping on the scale for weights, and being handled for veterinary checks"?
What Little Blue Penguin nests often are.
What are burrows lined with grasses, leaves, or seaweed along rocky shorelines, in sandy crevices, or under buildings and wood piles?
The age at which Little Blues are no longer considered chicks, and what they are considered after that.
What is 2 months old? What are juveniles?
Tell me how AAQ's breeding season begins (like with the addition of what objects) & what the objects are modeled after.
AAQ's breeding season begins with the addition of nest boxes in the exhibit, designed to match next boxes that penguin researchers use in Australia to give the birds some extra protection from predators while they are spending time on land nesting and caring for chicks.
The approximate length of time the penguin parents will take care of the chick(s) and feed them, and the frequency biologists check in on the chick during this time, weighing and visually examining it to make sure it is healthy and growing.
What is approximately 2-3 weeks? What is once a day?
How the chicks approaching their juvenile stage will be slowly introduced to the colony.
What is by spending time in a clear-sided "howdy" pen on exhibit?
The number of eggs females lay per clutch.
What is about one or two?
When they are considered adults, and about the age that is.
What is after their first catastrophic molt? What is around a year and a half or two years old?
What is "AAQ's nest boxes do not have a bottom so the penguins can dig a nest area in the sand and then collect nesting material that we provide (plastic aquarium plants) to build their nests inside the boxes as they like"?
The chick's approximate weight gain for the first 3 weeks or so.
What is approximately 10% of their body weight every day!?
The opportunities the "howdy" pen gives the youngsters.
What is the opportunity to get used to sights, smells, and sounds of being on exhibit while observing other members of the colony and learning appropriate penguin behaviors? (it also prevents them from being picked on)
How and for about how long Little Blue Penguins incubate their eggs.
What is the males and females taking shifts until the eggs hatch after about 34-39 days (4-5 weeks)?
About how often Little Blue Penguins remain with the same mate.
What is about 50% of the time, as they do not always mate for life like some other penguin species?
What is that they are soft enough for a nest but easy to wash and disinfect since they get covered in penguin waste?
The way AAQ handles penguin parents feeding their chicks
What is "penguin parents receive extra feeds from the biologists each day to provide them with enough extra food to feed their chicks, since the chicks are eating partially digested fish from their parents"?
The next stage for the young Little Blues after a few days observing from the safety of the howdy pen.
What is "the juvenile will get some supervised 'play time' with the colony before they are fully introduced"?
For how long and by whom chicks are fed.
What is for up to 2 months by both parents?
Bonus questions:
1.) Do Little Blue Penguins recognize their children as their family when the children are adults/their parents as their family when they are adults?
2.) What is the reason penguins are colonial animals?
2.) Safety in numbers -- NOT because of family groups
How eggs are incubated at AAQ
What is "the penguin pair will take turns incubating their eggs. Although we do sometimes use an incubator for eggs each breeding season, the egg is returned to the parents before it hatches so parents can take care of the chick"?
When and until when the biologists take over the chick-rearing duties in a behind-the-scenes area.
What is once the chicks are big enough to begin eating small whole fish (typically around 3 weeks)? What is until the chicks become juveniles (another 4-5 weeks) with most of their waterproof feathers?
How AAQ's Little Blues start out with swimming
What is "biologists also observe and supervise the first few swims, just like we usually learn to swim with a lifeguard present"?