Emperor penguin

Emperor penguins live only in Antarctica, and the first thing to know before you book is that a standard Antarctic Peninsula cruise almost never sees one. The emperor (Aptenodytes forsteri) is the largest of the 18 penguin species, about 45 in (115 cm) tall, and it breeds through the Antarctic winter on frozen sea.¹² To stand near a colony you need a trip built for it: a helicopter voyage to Snow Hill Island in November or early December, or a flight to a private camp from Chile or South Africa that costs several times as much. In April 2026 the IUCN announced that the species is now Endangered.⁵

Where do emperor penguins live?

Emperor penguins breed all the way around the coast of Antarctica and nowhere else, although stray birds have turned up as far north as Argentina, Chile, the Falklands, South Georgia and New Zealand.²⁰ Most colonies sit on fast ice, the sea ice locked between islands or grounded icebergs, and they range from a few hundred to more than 20,000 pairs.¹ A 2025 British Antarctic Survey study counts 66 known breeding sites, most of which have never had a visit on the ground.⁴ The biggest colonies, of more than 15,000 pairs, are in the Ross Sea and the Weddell Sea, and the last global count, a survey of 2009 satellite images since updated, came to about 256,500 breeding pairs in 54 colonies; most of the colonies found since are small.³²⁰

The British Antarctic Survey calls them true Antarctic birds: they breed farther south than any other penguin and are rarely seen in subantarctic waters.² They are tied to the sea ice all year, and the 2026 IUCN assessment knows of only two colonies that sit wholly on land.²⁰

Can you see emperor penguins on a normal Antarctica cruise?

Rarely. A classic cruise from Ushuaia across the Drake Passage spends its landings on the western side of the Peninsula and in the South Shetland Islands, as our Antarctic Peninsula page shows, and the colonies are elsewhere. Three things work against you:

• Place. Emperors breed around almost the whole Antarctic coast except the northwest of the Peninsula, where fast ice is less stable.⁴ On the Peninsula's west side, the Emperor Island colony fell from about 150 pairs in the 1970s to fewer than 20 by 1999 and had apparently gone by 2009; it appears to have moved to more stable ice.³ Snow Hill Island, the colony the ship-based emperor trips aim for, is on the Weddell Sea side of the Peninsula, where multi-year pack ice often blocks the way.¹⁰
• Season. Emperors arrive at their colonies in late March and April, lay in May and June, and their chicks fledge in December and January as the sea ice breaks out; the adults then moult from January to March and may travel up to about 750 miles (1,200 km) to pack ice to do it.³² The Snow Hill and fly-in trips in the table below all run between early November and mid-December.
• Chance. Oceanwide Expeditions says single emperors are often seen on the ice floes of the Antarctic Sound, the passage at the Peninsula's northern tip into the Weddell Sea.¹⁰ That is a sighting of one or two birds, not a colony.

What you will see on a standard trip instead is covered in our penguin species guide.

Which trips go to see emperor penguins?

These are the trips we found that set out to reach emperor penguins, with the lowest fares listed on October 14, 2026; we re-read the ALE and White Desert pages on October 15 to pin down their seasons. They fall into two groups: ships that use helicopters or icebreaking in the Weddell Sea, and flights to camps on the ice.

Ponant's page describes the Weddell Sea as nearly inaccessible and promises a search for emperor penguins, not a colony visit; its Charcot voyages there do not start until October 2027.¹³¹² Aurora is plainer still: emperors breed on the sea ice, so sightings in the Ross Sea are rare.¹⁷ Treat both as voyages where emperors are a possible bonus.

Read the fares closely. Oceanwide's November 15 departure was $13,450 and down to two berths for women, and its $12,100 fares carried a discount badge with no offer name or end date.¹¹ Aurora's lower fare had no named offer or end date either, and Ponant shows its PONANT Bonus only as a percentage.¹⁷¹² ALE's November 18 date was full, its 2027 price was not yet set, and it states no occupancy basis; White Desert's 2027-28 prices are higher, at $72,000 and $82,000.¹⁴¹⁶

What are the chances of seeing emperor penguins at Snow Hill Island?

No operator publishes a success rate, and a ship-based attempt can fail. Oceanwide puts the chance that the route to Snow Hill is free of multi-year pack ice at less than 50%. It says its attempts from 2012 to 2019 did not always succeed, and that conditions allowed helicopter landings and colony visits in 2013, 2017 to 2019 and 2022 to 2024.¹⁰

Quark says it was the first company to take travelers to Snow Hill, in 2004, describes the colony as 8,000 strong, and spends five days near the island; its stated goal is to get every guest to the colony once.⁷ In late 2023 it landed 208 guests on two voyages. Ultramarine stopped about 20 nautical miles (37 km) from the island, helicopters flew small groups to a staging site well away from the colony, and every guest walked several kilometers over the sea ice to reach it.⁹

The fly-in trips depend on flying weather instead of sea ice. ALE builds a flexible flight day into each end of its Gould Bay stay, and White Desert says it reshapes each week's itinerary around flying windows.¹⁴¹⁵ Neither publishes a success rate.

Our pick, from the published itineraries and fares rather than any success figures: if emperors are the whole point and the budget allows, ALE's Gould Bay trip gives you the most time at a colony, sleeping in tents on the same sea ice as the birds between two flexible flight days.¹⁴ If you want emperors as part of a wider voyage, Quark's trip spends the most days near Snow Hill. Oceanwide's is the cheapest way to try, at less than half Quark's fare, if you can accept a less than even chance that the helicopters reach the colony and can book your own flights to Ushuaia, which Quark's fare covers from Buenos Aires.¹¹⁸

When is the best time to see emperor penguins?

November and early December, because that is when the trips run and the chicks are still at the colony. Eggs are laid in May and June and hatch after about 65 days, and the chicks stay on the ice until it breaks out in December or January.³² In winter, ships often cannot reach the colonies at all.⁴ White Desert times its trip for November, when it says the chicks at Atka Bay are taking their first steps, and the Snow Hill departures in the table leave between November 3 and December 5.¹⁵⁸¹¹ For the rest of the Antarctic calendar, see the best time to visit Antarctica.

How close can you get to emperor penguins?

On the ship-based trips, expect a long walk from the helicopter landing site and then to watch from outside the colony's edge. On land, the Antarctic Treaty's general visitor guidelines say to keep at least 16 ft (5 m) from wildlife, farther where species or site guidelines require it. They also say to stay outside the margins of a colony, never block animals' routes, give them right of way, never use drones near wildlife, and avoid flying aircraft over concentrations of birds.¹⁸

The trips keep you farther back than 16 ft. Quark lands its helicopters as close to the penguins as possible but at a safe distance, and in 2023 its guests walked several kilometers from the staging site.⁷⁹ Oceanwide's landing site is about a 45-minute walk from the colony and is chosen so the penguins are not disturbed.¹⁰ ALE asks guests to move slowly, keep their distance and stay off the penguins' travel routes.¹⁴

How big are emperor penguins? Are they 4 feet tall?

Not quite. An emperor stands about 44 to 45 in (112 to 115 cm), or about 3 ft 9 in, which makes it the tallest penguin but still short of 4 ft.²⁰² Its weight swings with the breeding fast: the 2026 IUCN assessment gives 42 to 101 lb (19 to 46 kg), and the British Antarctic Survey's typical figure is 84 lb (38 kg).²⁰² When carrying their fat for the winter, emperors are about as large around the chest as an average man.¹

What is the difference between a king penguin and an emperor penguin?

The king is the emperor's closest relative and looks similar, but it is smaller, breeds farther north, and is the one you can see on an ordinary trip. Both belong to the genus Aptenodytes, and the British Antarctic Survey notes that the two rarely meet.²

What is special about emperor penguins?

The Australian Antarctic Division calls the emperor the only animal that breeds during the Antarctic winter, and five facts show how it manages.¹

1. The father does the winter. The female lays a single egg in May and passes it to the male, who balances it on his feet for about nine weeks without eating and loses 45% of his body weight. She returns in August, around hatching time.²
2. They huddle. On very cold days as many as 10 birds pack into each square meter (about 11 sq ft), by the Australian Antarctic Division's count; the British Antarctic Survey's 2017 leaflet gives a peak of 19. The temperature inside can reach 75°F (24°C), and the birds take turns on the cold windward edge.¹²
3. They are deep divers. Most dives reach 490 to 820 ft (150 to 250 m); the deepest recorded was 1,850 ft (565 m) and the longest lasted 22 minutes.¹
4. They breed on the frozen sea. Almost every colony sits on fast ice, which is why its early break-up is the species' biggest threat.²⁰⁵
5. The chicks leave light. When the sea ice breaks out, the chicks go to sea at only 60% of adult weight, the lowest of any penguin.²

Are emperor penguins aggressive?

Not toward each other, by penguin standards. The Australian Antarctic Division says the emperor is the only penguin species that is not territorial, and the British Antarctic Survey says emperors set aside the aggression of other penguins to huddle in groups of up to 5,000 adults and chicks.¹² The visitor distance rules above are there to protect the birds.

What do emperor penguins need to survive?

Stable sea ice, food and fat. They need fast ice that holds from their arrival in late March or April until the chicks fledge in December or January, and pack ice or large floes for feeding and for the moult, when they are not waterproof and cannot feed.²⁰⁵ If the ice breaks up before the chicks can swim, a colony fails.⁵ The fasting males live off their fat through the winter, and breeding adults must fill their stomachs at sea and carry the food back to colonies that are often a long way from the fishing grounds.¹

How long do emperor penguins live, and what do they eat?

About 20 years on average, according to the 2025 British Antarctic Survey study, and some live past 40, according to the Australian Antarctic Division, although most do not live that long in the wild.⁴¹ An older British Antarctic Survey leaflet, from 2017, gave 20 years as the upper limit; we follow the newer sources.² They eat mainly Antarctic silverfish, other fish, Antarctic krill and squid: 4.4 to 6.6 lb (2 to 3 kg) a day, and up to 13 lb (6 kg) when fattening up before the moult or the breeding season.¹ A healthy adult penguin has no predators on land; at sea, leopard seals and killer whales hunt penguins, and skuas and giant petrels take eggs and chicks.²

Are emperor penguins endangered?

Yes. On April 9, 2026, the IUCN announced that the emperor penguin had moved from Near Threatened to Endangered on its Red List, based on projections that sea-ice loss will halve the population by the 2080s.⁵ BirdLife International's assessment, dated February 26, 2026, lists it as Endangered under criterion A3bc.²⁰ It has been accepted for publication, but on October 15, 2026 it was still on the Red List's pre-publication page, cited for Red List version 2026-2, which the IUCN has scheduled for November 26, 2026; until then BirdLife's species factsheet still shows the 2020 Near Threatened listing.²⁰²¹³

Satellite images show a loss of about 10% between 2009 and 2018, more than 20,000 adults. The main driver is early break-up of the fast ice, which has been at record lows since 2016.⁵ A 2025 study of the sector from 0° to 90°W, about a third of the world population, found a best-fit decline of 22% from 2009 to 2023, faster than demographic models under high-emission scenarios had predicted.⁴ In that sector the Halley Bay colony, once one of the largest in Antarctica, collapsed in 2016, and an unusually early rainfall in October 2010 killed several hundred chicks at Snow Hill Island.⁴

Protection is lagging. At the Antarctic Treaty meeting in Hiroshima in May 2026, a proposal to list the emperor as a Specially Protected Species failed to reach consensus; the meeting's chair said China strongly opposed it, with Russia aligning itself with China. The ABC reported that since 2016 almost half of Antarctica's emperor colonies have had increased or complete breeding failure because of fast-ice loss.⁶ The assessors name human-caused climate change as the most significant threat.⁵ The IUCN assessment notes that the breeding sites tourists visit hold only a small percentage of the population, and that the direct effect of tourist visits on breeding penguins is uncertain.²⁰

Should you book an emperor penguin trip?

Book one if emperors are the reason you are going to Antarctica and you can accept that a ship-based attempt may not reach the colony. Pick a fly-in trip only if more time at a colony is worth $64,595 to $75,250, roughly two and a half to six times the $12,100 to $26,090 of a Snow Hill voyage, and remember that flights wait on the weather too.^8111416

Skip it if you want the most penguins for your money on a first trip. A standard Peninsula cruise still shows you several other penguin species, and adding South Georgia brings the king penguin, the emperor's closest look-alike.²¹⁹ Our guides to what an Antarctica trip costs and how to choose an Antarctica cruise will help you compare.