Recommended Reading

Here's an excellent article over at LiveScience about the detrimental effects of cuteness on species conservation. Turns out, cuter animals siphon resources away from needer, less cute animals. Even within a cute species like penguins, we pay more attention to the subspecies at lower risk because the high-risk ones aren't quite as cute.

Emperor penguins have been getting a lot of the penguin spotlight lately. We've had two high-profile Emperor-centric movies, March of the Penguins and Happy Feet, with the associated books, video games, plushies and educational materials. Now, no penguin subspecies is currently in the clear as far as the World Conservation Union--keepers of the endangered species list--is concerned, but Emperors are one of the least threatened penguins.

Keeping the emperors company on the lowest level of endangered speciesdom are the Little Blues, spokespenguins for the Little Penguin wines and target of the "Adopt a Penguin" efforts that the Little Penguin Winery is helping promote and support. Also at "lower risk" status, the Gentoo, which gained notoriety as the namesake of a Linux distro.

The most critical ranking that the World Conservation Union gives to any penguin subspecies is "Endangered," which is a step safer than "critically endangered" and two steps above "extinct in the wild." The Endangered tag goes to three subspecies: the White Flippered, the Erect-crested, and the Galapagos, none of which gets much beak time in the popular media.