First to the ground… my money is on Wally.
Seal Cliff Jumping
Something I forgot to mention when the comic introduced the Weddell Seal yesterday… there actually is a cliff in Antarctica (perhaps even several unknown) with several seal corpses at the bottom.
They weren’t base jumping though, not on purpose anyway, it is believed they got lost in a storm and the leader led them right off a cliff to their end. With the freezing temperatures, and no other animals around to clean the bones, or ants or anything, the corpses become mummified. It’s only the wind that eventually breaks them down after thousands of years. There are actually several locations of mummified seals and penguins, some thousands of years old, sometimes loners, that apparently lost their way, or took a wrong turn and went the opposite way of the ocean, perhaps during a bad storm. The further south or inland you get in Antarctica (closer to the pole), the colder and harsher it is.
They are usually pretty sluggish once they are on land just laying in a pile of themselves basking in the sun or resting, this is especially the case with the seals of Antarctica as they have a lot extra “insulation”, and the Weddell seal probably more so than the others as it is the only mammal to make Antarctica its year round home. To do this it does spend most of its time in the water, as the water is often warmer than the air due to the wind chill factor. When a mother Weddell seal gives birth to a baby, it plops it out right on the ice, and the newborn experiences well over a shocking 100 degree temperature change.
So… there is another creature that loves him some penguin, also at the top of the Antarctica food chain, and that is the Leopard Seal. Named for its massive jaws and its spotted fur, it is the most ferocious looking of seals, these guys even feed on other seals. This is the true predator of penguins. Their head is often described as being reptilian. They sort of slither low on the ice and spend most of the time in the water. In fact, Osbourne is really not in much danger here, his little waddle is much more efficient on the ice compared to the sluggish Leopard Seal out of water. In the water would be another story.
likely it is having a look to navigate the ice channels. Every winter, much of the water surrounding Antarctica is frozen, when warmer weather comes, the ice starts to break up forming channels of water between large sheets of ice. Orca’s often swim up these channels in pursuit of prey such as giant Antarctic cod that come far into the ice, or closer inland seeking refuge. They have the advantage as they have gills. The orca must maintain a route along channels it can surface for air.
There’s actually an old myth that the comic is based on… that when a group of Adelies get to the water’s edge they push in a "sacrifice victim" to see if any dangerous predators such as leopard seals are present. If he isn’t eaten then they all jump in. The groups can be so big and crowded that some penguins actually do inadvertently get pushed in, and once they start going in they all follow suit. I suppose it would be like constantly being in a rock concert mosh pit. Then there’s the way they shoot up out of the water which is even more entertaining and there will definitely need to be some strips in the future covering that.
Also it undoubtedly helps them glide through the water. Even in that icy waters they maintain a body temperature between 100 and 102 degrees. That’s a few degrees warmer than you and I.