In 2018 Jamie Hayes travelled to the sub-Antarctic islands with her family. Her eyes witnessed something that she has never seen before, something very emo. In the beautiful scenery she saw a teenage penguin in an amateurish phase of peeling that looked like a bruised thumb.

The young penguins don’t swim before they finish molting, but apparently this little penguin got wetter than it planned. It just spread out such a vibe like a person who had a hard day at work and needs a hot bath. Even its parent didn’t seem to be amused about the state of the little penguin.

It was the first time for Jamie to see a penguin in this state, but all at once they where all over the place. She even saw a colony with about 100,000 penguins, which is incredible. The young penguins were in different phases of peeling their feathers. Some still had their fluffy wool-like feathers, others had weird patches which looked very much like wigs. A few of them actually had mohawks.

Unhappily for the penguins, the operation of molting their baby feathers may be awkwardly comparable to the puberty we know. The king penguins are the second-largest penguins in the world. The young penguins have chunky dark feathers until they begin their shedding process at the age of approximately 10 months to 12 months. The feathers will be taken over by shiny black ones on their backs, and white ones on the chests. On their ears and throats they then will have orange ones. These renewed feathers are impermeable and the fat beneath keeps them warm while they are in the frosty ocean.

Although Jamie saw so much different and wonderful wildlife on her tour, even years later, the young emo penguin is still one of her favorite things to remember.