Emperor penguins are ridiculously cool animals. Many of you have probably seen the movie March of the Penguins that chronicles their migration to breeding grounds amidst harsh Antarctic conditions. If you haven't seen it, you should check it out. It's actually a real tear-jerker. While it is utterly amazing that these creatures can travel up to 60 miles in winds that exceed 100mph and temperatures that routinely dip below -60F, that is not the subject of this post. Today, I would like to focus on another facet of the emperor penguin - it's poop.
Scientists have recently discovered previously unknown colonies of emperor penguins by noticing their poop stains from space. I know it sounds crazy, but stick with me. Scientists at the British Antarctic Survey found this out by accident when they were looking at satellite images of their bases. A reddish-brown streak on the colorless ice was located right where they knew a colony of penguins were located. The stain was penguin poop. Because penguins stay on the same patch of ice for months, their poop collects in one area and is visible from space.
Using this unconventional yet effective method, scientists were able to scour satellite images of Antarctica for the reddish-brown stains and identified 38 distinct penguin colonies, 6 of which were previously unknown. Considering that scientist predict one third of Antarctica's sea ice will melt by the end of the century, this information will prove very useful in studying the effects of climate change on the emperor penguin population.
4 comments:
Poop - a climate subject upon which Algore can truly pontificate! Really though - interesting Elaine - I LOVE penguins - they are very cool indeed!
So cool! Poop is so, so, so poopifiedish.
I read that "Scientists have recently discovered previously unknown colonies of emperor penguins by noticing their poop stains from space." I thought,"Crazy!" Then I read "I know it sounds crazy, but stick with me." I thought that was funny.
Poop is one of my favorite topics, much to the dismay of my husband. Animal poop is something that causes me great anxiety, however. I'm glad that the scientists are able to put it to good use. Seriously, that is very interesting.
So, are you saying that the earth has skid-marks that are visible from the cosmos?
This fact leaves me with a mixture of laughter and awe.
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