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Meet Spike: The world's most popular penguin!

Spike the penguinBirdland

Spike has been crowned the world's most popular flightless bird

The results are in for the most popular penguin in the world, and the winner is right here in the UK!

Spike, who lives at Birdland in the Cotswolds, has officially been crowned the world's most popular flightless bird, in a competition run by Penguins International.

The 'March of the Penguins Madness' contest is run to draw attention to the difficulties penguins face around the world.

The UK-based King penguin hatched in 2007, but was abandoned by his parents, and so was raised by people working at the centre.

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Birdland

Sir David Attenborough met Spike (front left) at Birdland

Over the years Spike has become a social media star with 15,000 followers on Facebook, and has even appeared on TV alongside Sir David Attenborough in a programme called Natural Curiosities.

"For Spike to have made quite such a global impact is really incredible," said his keeper, Alistair Keen.

The penguin also features on Christmas and birthday cards, as well as on the front cover of encyclopaedias, and in books and magazines.

King Penguin fact file

  • None of the species of penguin can fly, and King Penguins are no exception

  • King Penguins are the second largest species of penguin in the world - their cousins Emperor Penguins are the biggest

  • They're very recognisable - the splash of yellow in their feathers are hard to miss

  • Their average lifespan is around 26 years old, but the oldest King Penguin ever recorded, who was called Grandma and lived in a zoo in Germany, lived to 46

  • King penguins in the wild can gobble down as many as 2000 fish in a day

Birdland

Spike has more than 15,000 Facebook followers

Mr Keen said that Spike has "a real personality", and that he and the other staff members at Birdland have "a fantastic bond with him".

Spike was up against Mai, an African penguin who lives in Hawaii.

Birdland

In the end the result was incredibly close, with Spike getting 50.5% of the vote and Mai 49.5%.

But it wasn't just Mai that Spike had to beat - during the process he took on popular rivals from Australia, America and Canada as well!

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