The best-dressed penguin
Pierre is a penguin.
he lives at an animal research center in San Francisco, California.
in 2007 , Pierre became famous for being the best-dressed penguin in the world.
(well, in fact, he was the world's only dressed penguin...)
pierre's outfit?
no, it wasn't a tuxedo.
it was a wet suit.
Pam Schaller is a scientist at the California Academy of Sciences, where Pierre lives.
she explains that penguins lose all of their feathers and grow new ones every year.
in 2005 , Pierre did not get any mew feathers.
by 2007 , he was bald on many parts of his bod.
this was a serious problem for Pierre.
before he lost his feathers, he was a group leader.
but when he went bald, the other penguins started to treat him badly.
that is because they could not identify him.
Penguins identify each other by their feathers.
the other penguins were treating Pierre like a stranger
because they did not recognize him.
another problem for Pierre was the cold.
Penguins live to swim, but they need their feathers to stay warm.
Pierre was too cold to swim very much.
Pierre's situation was dangerous.
it did not look like he could survuve.
Luckily for Pierre, he had a clever friend: Pam Schaller.
Pam felt sorry for Pierre, and she wanted to help him.
then she got an idea.
maybe she could make Pierre a wet suit.
that way, he could enjoy swimming again.
she got the idea from looking at her own wet suit and clothes for dogs.
Pierre wore his wet suit for about six weeks.
he started swimming again, and the other penguins seemed to like his new outfit.
they accepted him back into the group.
and then something even better happened.
Pierre's feathers grew back! Pam removed his wet suit,
and he became a group leader again.
what's next for the world's only dressed penguin?
maybe it's time for something less practical and more fashionable.
hmm . . . maybe a tuxedo?