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Place 03 · The Galápagos · Chapter 1 of 7
Penguins on the Equator
There is a penguin that lives on the equator. It did not get lost: the cold water came to it.
About 15 minutes · 1 video · 1 live map · 2 quick activities
Start here
A penguin in the wrong place?
Galápagos penguins are about half a meter tall, and most of them live on Fernandina and the west coast of Isabela, where the equator crosses the islands. The northern tip of Isabela pokes just over the line, so a few of them live in the Northern Hemisphere, the only penguins that do. Their closest relatives live on the cold coasts of Peru and Chile, and the explanation for both is the same river in the sea.
Watch this
See it move
MinuteEarth — Why Are There Penguins At The Equator? Two minutes, some very simple drawings, and the answer to this chapter’s riddle.
While you watch, look for
- Where the cold water around the Galápagos comes from
- Which direction that water is flowing when it arrives
- Something you did not expect. Hold onto it.
The short version
Three things going on here
The wheels
Five giant loops
Wind drags the top layer of the sea into surface currents, and the continents and the spinning Earth bend them into five great loops called gyres: the North and South Pacific, the North and South Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean. They turn clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern. Anything that floats can ride one for years.
The edges
Warm on one side, cold on the other
The currents running along the edges of a gyre are called boundary currents. Along the east coasts of continents they are fast, narrow and warm, like the Gulf Stream, carrying tropical water toward the poles. Along the west coasts they are slow, wide and cold, like the California Current, carrying cold water toward the equator.
The delivery
A cold river from the south
The Humboldt Current is the cold eastern edge of the South Pacific gyre: it carries chilly water north from the Southern Ocean along Chile and Peru, and coastal upwelling chills it further. Off northern Peru the sea can be as cold as about 16 °C, where most tropical seas are above 25 °C. Near the equator it swings west and carries the chill out to the Galápagos.
Photos: Eugenia Remark, Andres Felipe Tamayo, Gilmer Diaz Estela / Pexels
Play with it
Ride the currents right now
This live map shows ocean currents moving right now. Find the coast of Chile and Peru and follow the flow north, then look for the Galápagos, the little islands on the equator about 900 km west of Ecuador, and see which way the water is heading there.
Live map: Windy.com, ocean current data from the Copernicus Marine Service.
Two questions to answer while you are in there
- Along the coasts of Chile and Peru, which way is the water flowing: toward the equator or away from it?
- If you dropped a coconut in the sea off Peru, roughly where would the currents carry it, and would it pass the Galápagos?
Try it yourself
Check yourself
Try it
Warm or Cold? Which Way?
Quick-fire: decide whether each current is warm or cold, and which way it carries you.
Try it · interactive
Current Rider
Drop a drifting buoy anywhere in the Pacific and watch the gyres and boundary currents carry it, until the cold Humboldt Current delivers it to the Galápagos.
Open the Current Rider in its own window (opens in a new tab).
Words you will hear
Four terms, that is all
Surface current
Wind-driven flow in the ocean’s top layer
Gyre
Giant loop of currents circling an ocean basin
Boundary current
Current running along an ocean basin’s edge
Humboldt Current
Cold current flowing north along South America
Check your understanding
Practice the whole chapter
Everything in this chapter, in eight quick questions. Retry as often as you like. Read the feedback on every answer, right or wrong, because that is where the learning is.
Practice
Practice: Penguins on the Equator
Eight questions covering the video, the three cards, the four terms and the interactive above.
If you want more
Go deeper
- Webb 9.1 — Surface Gyres — LibreTexts · 10 minutes
- Our World Ocean 10.2 — Boundary Currents — LibreTexts · 10 minutes
- Oceanography 101 (MiraCosta) 9.6 — Boundary Currents — LibreTexts · 8 minutes
Photo credits (Pexels): Karen Longwell, Diego F. Parra, Eugenia Remark, Andres Felipe Tamayo, Gilmer Diaz Estela.