The Facebook development team, especially their chat division, seem to have somewhat of a mysterious air to them. They rarely make announcements or press releases, but they seem to be constantly working to improve the user experience on Facebook for the better of its millions and millions of members.

Last night I noticed that the Facebook team, with no announcement or fanfare, had added another emoticon to its growing list - The Facebook penguin emoticon! It always comes as a bit of a suprise when the developers at FB add a new emote, and it leaves many people asking why they chose that animal or face...

Why a penguin?

There seems to be some debate in the net community regarding why Facebook would choose to insert this type of beast into its emoticon array. Could it be a hat-tip to the recent family fun film 'Happy Feet'? Perhaps even more likely, a nod in the direction of the thousands of Linux developers who form the heart of Facebook's huge server farm? Could it be related to the snowy weather which is surely going to come this winter?

Whatever the reason, the new emoticon is surely going to challenge the ex-latest addition, the Facebook shark emoticon, for its crown as the coolest Facebook smiley on the block!

How to add the new Facebook Penguin emoticon to your chats

This is the key information, but I thought I'd save it for the end to build your excitement up some more! Once again, Facebook has decided to use a 'new' keypress to bring their emote to life, a testament to their originality and individuality. So here it is:

Facebook penguin smiley - <(")

Cute right?! I have been putting it at the end of every sentence in my Facebook chats, and when people ask me about why my writing is littered with penguins I just tell them that the fullstop button on my keyboard is broken! That makes them mad, usually.

Other pranks that I've pulled include denying that I can see the emoticon at all! Then putting four or five in a row, then asking them why they put the smilies into the chat window. Crazy!

Anyway, enough of my rambling. I hope you're happy with the new emotion on Facebook, I know I am. There is a full list of Facebook chat emoticons on Hubpages already, and if you want even more information (and the original full list of Facebook emoticons) you can find them on djod.co.uk!