Dark stains on the pristine white ice and snow in Antarctica gave scientists from the British Antarctic Survey the clues they needed to find four previously unknown Emperor penguin breeding sites. The penguins’ guano–aka bird poop–showed up on satellite imagery as a series of dark smudges and allowed researchers to zero in on these new breeding sites. The findings are described in a study published January 20 in the journal Antarctic Science.
[Related: The march of the penguins has a new star: an autonomous robot.]
Colonies of thousands of these large penguins live and breed on the frozen sea ice along the coast of Antarctica. However, rising ocean temperatures due to climate change is melting the ice at a rapid rate and forcing Emperor penguins to relocate to more stable ground. Typically, Emperor penguins breed in sites that are remote and inhospitable to humans, so researchers rely on satellite imagery to find and monitor Emperor penguin colonies and the poop stands out clearly against the white landscape. In 2018, a “super-colony” of about 1.5 million Adélie penguins (751,527 pairs) was discovered by satellite images that showed large amounts of penguin poop.
Finding a ‘lost’ colony
Some known colonies have already moved 18 to 25 miles towards new breeding grounds. In the process, the scientists using satellites discovered the four colonies that had never been recorded. One of these groups includes the Halley Bay colony which the researchers previously thought had vanished. This group has re-established itself near the MacDonald Ice Rumples, which are about 18 miles east of their old breeding sites. There are now a total of 66 known Emperor penguin colonies, according to the British Antarctic Survey.
Researchers used images from the European Commission’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite…
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