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Penguins (Compendium; Miscellaneous)

And now the missing penguins ...

Where on Earth, wondered Henri Weimerskirch, were all the penguins?

It was early 2017. Colleagues had sent the seabird ecologist aerial photos of Île aux Cochons, a barren volcanic island halfway between Madagascar and Antarctica that humans rarely visit. The images revealed vast areas of bare rock that, just a few decades before, had been crowded with some 500,000 pairs of nesting king penguins and their chicks. It appeared that the colony—the world’s largest king penguin aggregation and the second biggest colony of any of the 18 penguin species—had shrunk by 90%. Nearly 900,000 of the regal, meter-high, black, white, and orange birds had disappeared without a trace. “It was really incredible, completely unexpected,” recalls Weimerskirch, who works at the French national research agency CNRS.

Soon, he and other scientists were planning an expedition to the island—the first in 37 years, and only the third ever—to search for explanations. “We had to go see for ourselves,” says CNRS ecologist Charles Bost.

As the researchers prepared for the journey, they had to grapple with the logistical, political, and scientific challenges that have long bedeviled biologists trying to understand Antarctica’s remote ecosystems. The vast distances, rough weather, and rugged terrain make travel difficult and expensive.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/why-did-nearly-million-king-penguins-vanish-without-trace
 
imgur.com/gallery/SSPir...

For archival purposes, here's the most penguin-relevant bit ...

AncientPenguins.jpg

By the time the non-avian dinosaurs went extinct (~66Ma), the ancestors of modern penguins were likely already swimming in southern waters. As continents continued to move and the world got a bit cooler, penguins radiated throughout the world. In South America, Australia, and New Zealand, there were several species of giants. The above illustration (whose creator I am unsure of – any ideas?) shows the biggest known penguins, as well as a few other extinct seabirds.

1) The great auk, Pinguinus impennis. Not a penguin, this giant puffin-like bird was hunted to extinction by humans in the 19th century.

2) Waimanu manneringi. This is the earliest known penguin, found in New Zealand shortly after the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs.

3) Pachydyptes ponderosus. Literally, the “thick, weighty penguin.” Look at this guy. Also hailing from New Zealand, this big lug lived ~35Ma, and was the second-largest penguin ever to live.

4) Icadyptes salasi. This big, long-billed penguin was discovered in Peru in 2007. It was a foot taller than our biggest living penguin, the emperor.

5) Inkayacu paracasensis. Discovered in 2010, this penguin lived alongside Icadyptes and was similar in size. Interestingly, melanosomes from Inkayacu’s fossilized feathers reveal that it was reddish-brown or gray, rather than sporting tuxedos like most of our modern species.

6) Anthropornis nordenskjoeldi. This is the kingpin of penguins. Standing almost 6 feet tall, it (surprise) is also from New Zealand, though fossils have been found on subantarctic islands as well. Although it was huge and flightless, its wing anatomy still had certain features reminiscent of flying ancestors.
 
Pedantic.

Garefowl (give the bird its true name, `Great Auk` is a post extinction monicker) are Penguins, as the latin name suggests.

Welsh `White faces`.

The Sothern hemisphere birds are frauds.
 
Pedantic.

Garefowl (give the bird its true name, `Great Auk` is a post extinction monicker) are Penguins, as the latin name suggests.

Welsh `White faces`.

The Sothern hemisphere birds are frauds.
If you’re being pedantic it’s scientific name not Latin name.
 
Now we know why people visiting penguin colonies are so happy with their experiences and the birds - it's the laughing gas.

NOTE: The headline is misleading. Penguins don't directly emit nitrous oxide. Their feces emit the gas when broken down by microbes.

Antarctic Penguins Poop Out So Much Laughing Gas, It Has a Funny Effect on Researchers

Antarctica's king penguins emit such copious amounts of nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, via their faeces that researchers went a little "cuckoo" studying them, according to a Danish scientific study published Thursday.

"Penguin guano produces significantly high levels of nitrous oxide around their colonies," said the head of the study, Professor Bo Elberling, of the University of Copenhagen's Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management.

While studying colonies of king penguins on the Atlantic island of South Georgia between South America and Antarctica, "the researchers went 'cuckoo' from being surrounded by penguin poop", he said.

Besides being a strain on the climate, nitrous oxide has an effect very similar to the sedative laughing gas used at the dentist's.

"After nosing about in guano for several hours, one goes completely cuckoo. One begins to feel ill and get a headache," Elberling said. ...

The nitrous oxide is explained by the penguin diet of krill and fish, which contains high levels of nitrogen.

Nitrogen is released from the penguins' faeces into the ground and soil bacteria then convert it into nitrous oxide ...

FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-love-antarctic-penguin-poop-here-s-why
 
Recent research illustrates the connections among prehistoric penguins and similar birds that once lived in the northern hemisphere.
New Zealand’s Ancient Monster Penguins Had Doppelgangers in Japan, the USA and Canada

New Zealand’s monster penguins that lived 62 million years ago had doppelgangers in Japan, the USA and Canada, a study published today in the Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research has found.

Scientists have identified striking similarities between the penguins’ fossilized bones and those of a group of much younger Northern Hemisphere birds, the plotopterids.

These similarities suggest plotopterids and ancient penguins looked very similar and might help scientists understand how birds started using their wings to swim instead of fly.

Around 62 million years ago, the earliest known penguins swam in tropical seas that almost submerged the land that is now New Zealand. Paleontologists have found the fossilized bones of these ancient waddlers at Waipara, North Canterbury. They have identified nine different species, ranging in size from small penguins, the size of today’s Yellow-Eyed Penguin, to 1.6 meter-high monsters.

Plotopterids developed in the Northern Hemisphere much later than penguins, with the first species appearing between 37 and 34 million years ago. Their fossils have been found at a number of sites in North America and Japan. Like penguins, they used their flipper-like wings to swim through the sea. Unlike penguins, which have survived into the modern era, the last plotopterid species became extinct around 25 million years ago. ...

FULL STORY: https://scitechdaily.com/new-zealan...ad-doppelgangers-in-japan-the-usa-and-canada/
 
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Ah, I've been looking all over the 'net for an amusing article that I saw on Penguins and then I find it again in this week's New Scientist:
Poop Shooters of the Antarctic ...

An update and extension of this research (which indeed won an IgNobel Prize) ...

It turns out that the internal gut pressures allowing a penguin to shoot its poop are considerably higher than first believed.
Penguins shoot 'poop bombs' more than 4 feet, incredibly important study finds

Adorable penguins are champs at projectile pooping

If the Olympics awarded medals for long-distance pooping, penguins would take home the gold.

These tubby, aquatic birds can squirt arcing jets of poop to distances nearly twice their own body length, and scientists recently calculated just how much force their tiny rectums produce in order to do so — and how far the poop can fly.

Over a decade ago, scientists had explored the pressure needed for chinstrap and Adelie penguins to expel poop along a mostly horizontal path, which they identified as penguins' most common poop direction. For a new study, which appeared on the preprint site arXiv on July 2 and has not been peer-reviewed, another team of researchers analyzed a different fecal trajectory in Humboldt penguins (Spheniscus humboldti), which often poop in a descending arc away from their nests on higher ground. ...

The team of scientists who first addressed the penguin poo puzzle published their results in 2003, in the journal Polar Biology; that pioneering study won the authors an Ig Nobel Prize in 2005 for fluid dynamics.

When a new team of researchers revisited the question, they expanded on the earlier results by recalculating internal pressures inside the penguin's gut and rectum, correcting for viscosity of the poo, and factoring in air resistance along an arcing trajectory. They then discovered that the forces at work were even more extreme than previously suggested.

Pressure is measured in units called kilopascals (kPa), where 1 kPa is 1,000 newtons per square meter. In the new study, the scientists calculated that the pressure generated in the rectums of pooping penguins was as much as 28.2 kPa — about 1.4 times the estimate in the 2003 study. ...

Though Humboldt penguins stand only 28 inches (71 centimeters) tall, the scientists discovered that the birds can generate enough poo-propelling energy to send fecal "bombs" flying at speeds of nearly 5 mph (8 km/h), landing up to 53 inches (134 cm) away. This achievement would be comparable to an adult human shooting their feces to a distance of more than 10 feet (3 meters), Tajima told Live Science in an email. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/pengins-projectile-poo.html
 
About 30 years ago I wandered into the the SF academy of sciences, which is a large natural science museum, and in the lobby there was a demonstration table with a docent and a real penguin baby - not so young because it had its feathers. You could pet it, which it liked a lot, and if it took off across the floor it got up a good speed. They're really solid little guys, not fluffy or slight like birds, and pretty heavy. Ranks in the top 10 of most fun I've ever had.
 
Penguin poop stains seen from orbit have provided the evidence for Antarctic penguin colonies never before known to exist.
Satellites Reveal Hidden Colonies of Emperor Penguins We Never Knew Existed

Satellite images of penguin poop in Antarctica have revealed a number of Emperor penguin colonies living and breeding on the icy continent that scientists weren't previously aware of.

Eight completely new communities have now been found in some of the most remote and inaccessible parts of Antarctica, and three additional colonies that were previously identified on the ground have also been confirmed from space.

In total, we now know of 61 current breeding locations for the largest penguin on Earth (Aptenodytes forsteri), a 20 percent increase from before. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/satell...r-penguin-colonies-on-the-brink-of-extinction
 
It's the one at the back in the shadows with the wasp waist, short legs and hooves that's really making me feel uncomfortable.
 
Now we know ... The reason penguins are so strange is because they originated on the Lost Continent (Zealandia) ... :omr:
Ancestor of All Penguins Lived on Earth's 'Lost' 8th Continent Zealandia, Fossils Show

Earth's lost eighth continent, Zealandia, sank into the sea between 50 and 35 million years ago. Today, we know the tiny fraction of it that remains above the waves as New Zealand.

But before most of Zealandia disappeared - about 60 million years ago - ancient penguins walked upon the 2-million-square-mile continent (5.18 million square kilometres). In fact, a recent discovery has led scientists to conclude that all modern-day penguins likely descended from Zealandia's ancient birds.

The newly identified fossils of an extinct penguin species offer a crucial, previously missing link between ancient and modern penguins.

Last month, researchers announced that they'd found a set of well-preserved 3-million-year-old fossils, including a skull and a wing bone, on New Zealand's North Island. They identified the bones as belonging to a previously unknown species of crested penguin, which they named Eudyptes atatu. ...

The finding serves as "an important clue that New Zealand might have been a biodiversity hotspot for seabirds for millions of years," Daniel Thomas, a zoologist at Massey University and the lead author of the study, told Business Insider.

That's far longer than researchers previously realised; earlier studies had only dated the presence of crested penguins on New Zealand back about 7,000 years, Thomas said. The new timeline suggests the region is the penguin's most likely place of origin. ...

E. atatu lived in New Zealand tens of millions of years after the rest of Zealandia sank. But the researchers think its ancestor evolved about 60 million years ago, suggesting that penguins likely once wandered the continent while the rest of its surface lay above sea level. ...

These ancient penguins may have been gigantic. In 2017, researchers found that prehistoric "mega-penguins" stood 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighed 220 pounds. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/ancest...h-s-lost-8th-continent-zealandia-fossils-show
 
Happy Birthday!

A Humboldt penguin who is thought to be the oldest in the world has celebrated her 31st birthday.

Rosie has lived at Sewerby Hall in East Yorkshire since she was born in 1990 as part of the zoo's breeding programme. Native to South America, Humboldts can live up to 20 years in the wild and are classed as "vulnerable to extinction". Staff at the Bridlington zoo said Rosie, who lives with fellow penguins Dion, Pingu and Penny, has been the "centre of attention" on her big day.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-humber-56814242
 
Vid at link

Chester Zoo blind penguin has surgery to save sight

A penguin at Chester Zoo has had surgery to save his eyesight after he struggled to see fish at feeding time. The zoo's bird experts found that Munch, who is a Humboldt penguin, had "been blinded by cataracts". Vets successfully repaired his sight in a two-hour operation and he has now been reunited with his life partner Wurly as they nurture eggs in their nest.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-merseyside-56866014
 
Bees kill penguins!

Sixty-three endangered African penguins have been killed by a swarm of bees in a rare occurrence near Cape Town, bird conservationists in South Africa say.

The protected birds, from a colony in Simonstown, were found on the shore with multiple bee-stings. They had no other physical injuries.

National parks officials told the BBC this was the first known attack at the world-famous Boulders Beach, which attracts up to 60,000 visitors a year.

"Usually the penguins and bees co-exist," said Dr Alison Kock, a marine biologist with South Africa's national parks agency (SANParks). "The bees don't sting unless provoked - we are working on the assumption that a nest or hive in the area was disturbed and caused a mass of bees to flee the nest, swarm and became aggressive," she added. "Unfortunately the bees encountered a group of penguins on their flight path."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-58622482
 
Pingu the penguin's perilous progress.

A penguin has found itself on the shores of New Zealand, at least 3,000 kilometres (1,864 miles) away from its natural habitat of Antarctica.

The Adélie penguin, who has now been affectionately named Pingu by locals, was found looking lost on the coast. Harry Singh, the local resident who found him, said he thought he was a "soft toy" at first. It is only the third recorded incident of an Adélie penguin being found on New Zealand's coast.

Mr Singh and his wife first came across the penguin when they were out walking after a long day of work on the beach at Birdlings Flat, a settlement south of the city of Christchurch.

"First I thought it (was) a soft toy, suddenly the penguin moved his head , so I realized it was real," Mr Singh told the BBC.

Footage of the penguin posted on Mr Singh's Facebook page showed the penguin appearing lost and alone.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59257495
 
Penguins move south.

Scientists from Stony Brook University have discovered gentoo penguin colonies on Antarctica’s Andersson Island and on an unexplored archipelago off the Antarctic Peninsula’s northern tip. These are some of the southernmost records for gentoo breeding in the region, per a Greenpeace statement.

Until recently, these areas were too icy for the penguins, which prefer warmer temperatures to raise their chicks. But as climate change melts Antarctic ice, the penguins are expanding their habitat, a phenomenon some scientists refer to as “gentoofication.”

“It’s may be a cliché at this point, but they’re the canary in the coal mine for climate change because they’re so closely tied to those sea ice conditions,” Heather Lynch, an Antarctic penguin expert at Stony Brook University in New York and the remote leader of the expedition, tells Mongabay.

Stony Brook researchers were sailing on a Greenpeace expedition, carrying out counts of penguin colonies in remote islands of the eastern Antarctic Peninsula, when they spotted a colony with 75 chicks living on Andersson Island, per Mongabay. The researchers are surveying parts of the peninsula where satellites had spotted penguin colonies but had never before been explored on foot.

"As expected, we're finding gentoo penguins nearly everywhere we look — more evidence that climate change is drastically changing the mix of species here on the Antarctic Peninsula,” says Lynch in a statement.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smar...an-indication-of-a-warming-climate-180979534/
 
Have you noticed how in the last 20 years or so penguins have become a staple of Christmas cards? Robins are on the decline. Something should be done.
I think it to do with people having little idea about arctic and antarctic widlife, demonstrated as Analogue Boy states above in The Apprentice. Which is all a bit sad.. What about Great Auks?
 
Have you noticed how in the last 20 years or so penguins have become a staple of Christmas cards? Robins are on the decline. Something should be done.
I think it to do with people having little idea about arctic and antarctic widlife, demonstrated as Analogue Boy states above in The Apprentice. Which is all a bit sad.. What about Great Auks?

Why not move polar bears to the Antarctic, plenty of penguins for them to eat.
 
They would have to fill in too much paperwork, that's why.

But Admusen debated using bears as sledge pullers.
 
Vid at link.

We've pp-picked up a penguin! Moment a penguin hitches a boat ride to the nearest iceberg after hopping on board to escape a hungry seal​

  • Adelie penguins are the most common species of penguin in Antarctica
  • Vladimir Seliverstov, 50, from Russia, filmed the penguin jumping onto his boat
  • The penguin had escaped a leopard seal just prior to jumping into the boat

This is the moment a penguin hitched a ride on a tourist boat back to an iceberg after escaping a seal attack.
Tour guide and photographer Vladimir Seliverstov, 50, from Russia, filmed the Adelie penguin on board the boat while on an expedition in Antarctica.

The penguin had escaped a leopard seal just prior to jumping into the boat.

After hitching a lift, the penguin stuck around until it delivered back to safety with its friends on a nearby iceberg.
.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ungry-seal.html?ito=social-twitter_mailonline
 
Substantial die-offs of small penguins in New Zealand represent a mystery as yet unexplained. One theory is that the penguins' preferred food source (fish) has been driven too deep to reach by warming ocean waters.
Hundreds of the world's smallest penguins have mysteriously washed up dead. What killed them?

More than 500 of the world's smallest penguins have mysteriously washed up dead on beaches across New Zealand over the past couple of months. Experts aren't exactly sure what has been killing off such a large number of the adorable seabirds, but they suspect that climate change may have played a role.

Aggregations of deceased little penguins (Eudyptula minor), known locally as kororā, have been washing up on beaches in the country's North Island since early May ... The largest cluster was a group of 183 dead birds that washed up last week on Ninety Mile Beach near Kaitaia; another 109 penguins were found on that same beach in early May. ... New Zealand's Department of Conservation (DOC) has now revealed that multiple other die-offs have been reported on beaches across North Island, ranging from a couple to dozens of bodies ...

It was not immediately clear what killed the penguins, but experts have noted that most of the dead seabirds were significantly underweight. Little penguins should weigh between 1.8 and 2.2 pounds (0.8 to 1 kilogram), but some of the bodies weighed less than half that much.

"There was just no body fat on them; there was hardly any muscle to show," Graeme Taylor, a DOC seabird scientist, told The Guardian. "When they get to that stage of emaciation, they can't dive," which eventually causes them to starve or die of hypothermia because they lack a protective layer of blubber, he added. ...

The malnourishment of the dead penguins shows that they have not been eating enough fish, their preferred food, which could be a sign of overfishing by humans. But Taylor suspects that rising ocean surface temperatures caused by climate change and a prolonged cyclical event known as La Niña have forced the fish into deeper, cooler waters, where the birds can no longer reach them. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/mass-little-penguin-die-off-new-zealand
 
Penguins make me happy.
Falling over:
Getting confused and leaving with the wrong gang (till their friend fetches them back):
 
Penguins at a Japanese aquarium aren't happy with the cheaper grade of mackerel being fed them as a cost-cutting measure. The otters seem to agree ...
Penguins unimpressed with Japanese aquarium's shift to cheaper fish

A Japanese aquarium said it is trying to switch its penguins' diet to a cheaper kind of fish as a result of inflation, but the birds are being uncooperative.

Officials at the Hakone-en Aquarium, southwest of Tokyo, said they switched the penguins from their usual diet of aji, aka Japanese horse mackerel, to a cheaper variety of mackerel after the price of aji spiked nearly 30 percent over last year. ...

A video filmed at the aquarium shows the penguins stubbornly refusing to accept offerings of the cheaper fish from keepers.

"Even if they'll take it in their beaks, they'll just spit it out," Hiroki Shimamoto, the head zookeeper at the aquarium, told VICE World News.

Aquarium workers said the penguins will begrudgingly eat the cheaper fish if it is mixed in with some aji. ...

Keepers said the facility's otters have also shown a preference for aji over the cheaper fish. ...
SOURCE: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2022/07/08/japan-aquarium-penguins-reject-cheaper-fish/8961657306930/
 
Oldest Humboldt penguin in captivity dies.

Zoo staff are mourning the loss of what was believed to be the world's oldest Humboldt penguin after her death at 32.

Rosie had lived at Sewerby Hall in East Yorkshire since 1990, when she was brought from a bird park in Surrey.

Native to South America, Humboldts can live up to 20 years in the wild and are classed as "vulnerable to extinction".

Staff at the Bridlington zoo said Rosie, who was just a few weeks short of her 33rd birthday, died in her sleep on Friday.

Head zookeeper John Pickering said: "We are all devastated by the loss of Rosie.

"I myself have been with her since she was four months old, and we have spent 32 years of our lives together in one way or another through all of life's trials and tribulations."

Rosie also had "a very special place in their hearts" of the other staff and visitors to the zoo, he added.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-humber-64919280
 
Wide-eyed and (almost) legless.

From the largest aviary in Asia they went, sitting in buckets filled with ice to keep them cool while transported in air-conditioned vans.

A quick 30km (19-mile) drive later, the three king penguins and three Humboldt penguins had arrived at a clinic in Singapore's east. There, a five-person veterinary team were waiting to perform a delicate eye procedure, thought to be a world first for penguins. The sextet underwent the removal of the cloudy lenses caused by cataracts - a common age-related condition that develops in geriatric animals and hinders their vision - before receiving custom-made intraocular lens implants.

The lenses were manufactured in Germany to fit each penguin's eye, based on precise measurements, and took about two months to make, said the Mandai Wildlife Group (MWG). The group manages some 21,000 animals, comprising almost 1,000 species, across four wildlife parks in Singapore.

"We noticed the cloudiness in their lens and [that they were] moving about like they were having difficulty seeing things in front of them," said MWG veterinarian Dr Ellen Rasidi.

In the immediate aftermath, the penguins had to stay out of water and in a separate den from the rest of their colony. Eye drops were also administered twice daily. But almost three months after the procedure, which took up to 2.5 hours for each penguin, the aquatic flightless birds can see clearly now, with a noticeable increase in responsiveness and activity levels. ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-64973420
 
P p pick out a penguin as the world's favourite.

A UK wildlife park resident is in the running to be crowned the world's favourite penguin.

Spike, who lives at Birdland in the Cotswolds, has made the final of the international competition held by charity Penguins International. He is up against an African Penguin called Mai, who lives in Hawaii.

Birdland's head keeper Alistair Keen, said: "We've already got one king being coronated in the next few weeks, but hopefully we can get a second."

Spike, a King Penguin, was hatched at the centre in Bourton on the Water in 2007 and hand-reared, after his mother and father abandoned him.

Alistair Keen crouched down smiling and looking at Spike

Image caption, Mr Keen (pictured) said Spike "quite regularly" chases keepers around

Spike has had cameras around him for most of his life so is "very used" to them, explained Mr Keen.

"He was on a lot of national newspapers as a chick, he was on BBC Breakfast news as a young penguin. He's our go-to bird for lots of TV work and photoshoots," he added.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-65296823
 
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