Pocket Penguins for Android & iPhone

Warning: Cute alert! Pocket Penguins, streaming in real-time from the California Academy of Sciences, provides an intimate view into our live African penguin exhibit. Watch the birds swim, dive, flirt, nest and relax from any one of three live webcams. Listen in as Academy biologists answer questions from visitors during meal time, daily at 10:30am and 3:00pm PST.

Get the App

Get a live view of our African penguin exhibit anywhere, anytime with Pocket Penguins.

If you enjoy this free application, please consider making a donation of $5 via SMS to help the Academy in its mission to explore, explain and protect the natural world.
Text PENGUINS to 20222.

Available directly from:

Penguin Blog

Watch our penguins live and read scientific insight and commentary on the PenguinCam blog.

View the blog

About the Exhibit

The Steinhart’s colony of African penguins can be found at the end of Tusher African Hall. A colony of twenty African penguins can be viewed through a window that is 26 feet wide and 16 feet tall.

The 25,000 gallon tank has a jet system designed to simulate wave action and stimulate the activities of the birds.

The life support system for this exhibit filters the water every 30 minutes, and maintains the water at a chilly 50°F.

Steinhart’s penguins are part of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association’s Species Survival Program, aimed at conserving this species in the wild. African penguins (Spheniscus demersus) live off the coast of South Africa and Namibia. In 2010, the International Union for Conservation of Nature classified the species as endangered, or at very high risk of extinction in the wild.