Most people envision penguins as fun, happy-go-lucky birds residing in the Earth’s chilly polar regions, but that’s not always the case. In fact, penguins can be quite unpleasant to unwelcomed visitors, be it a potential predator or even one of their own.
Younger penguins are often teeming with energy, and with that in mind, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that they tend to go exploring. In many cases, they’ll leave their own territory and venture out into another, and this is where things tend to get ugly.
As a young penguin enters another territory unwelcomed, adult penguins may bully or peck at the youngster repeatedly. If the young penguin doesn’t take the hint soon enough, it could be in for a bitter end. Bullyish peck-attacks by adults can be unrelenting, and in many cases, several adults will team up on young explorers until they are no more.
In the footage above, we see an example of one of these attacks. A young penguin is repeatedly pecked at by nearby adults until it eventually falls to the ground, bloodied and lifeless. Soon after, a family member of the young penguin’s finds the deceased relative and rests its head on the corpse as if to mourn the loss. Interestingly, the adults don't seem to mind the visiting relative...
Animal experts aren't sure why this happens, but their best guess is that adult penguins are extremely territorial and that the young penguin was simply toying around in the wrong place at the wrong time.