Latest Penguins Stories
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online While some may be lamenting the impending forces of climate change, Adélie penguins could actually benefit from rising global temperatures. According to a new study in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, the Adélie penguin population on Antarctica’s Beaufort Island increased 84 percent as the region’s ice fields retreated from 1958 to 2010. "This research raises new questions about how Antarctic species are impacted by a...
Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online When you think of penguins you probably think of cold, harsh climates, like those around Antarctica where the Emperor Penguin reigns supreme. However, not all penguin species live in cold regions of the world. In fact, several species live in more tropical climes such as the Galapagos and other equatorial regions. Penguins can also be found in Africa. And while only one species exists along the continent’s southern coast today,...
[Watch Video: Adélie Penguins and Climate Change] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Researchers studying Adélie penguins say that the Antarctic birds are actually coping with climate change, for now. A team set out with a five-year NSF grant to conduct research on how penguin populations cope with climate change, and on how individual birds cope. During the expedition, they wanted to know why some penguins succeed in coping with climate change, while others do not....
[ Video 1 ] [ Video 2 ] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Researchers tracking the behavior of emperor penguins near the sea have identified the importance of sea ice for their feeding habits. The team wrote in the journal PLOS ONE about the emperor penguins foraging behavior through the birds' chick-rearing season. Emperor penguins spend more time than other penguins diving for food, and only use about 30 percent of their time at sea to take short breaks to rest...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online New research, partially funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), shows that the breeding population of chinstrap penguins has significantly declined as temperatures have increased on the Antarctic Peninsula. Changing climatic conditions, rather than the impact of tourism, has the greatest effect on the chinstrap population. The findings of this study, conducted by a research team with the Antarctic Site Inventory (ASI), have...
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online Biologists are investigating the deaths of hundreds of penguins that were discovered washed up on the beaches at Brazil's southern Rio Grande do Sul state, various media outlets reported over the weekend. Officials with the Center of Coastal and Marine Studies (Ceclimar) told AFP reporters on Friday that the 512 Magellanic penguin bodies were found on the coast between the towns of Tramandai and Cidreira. They added that...
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online While it may sound like the plot for a low-budget fright-fest of a motion picture, the ongoing battle between giant rats and South American penguins on a Chilean island could turn into a real-life horror story for the birds and the environmental activists fighting to keep them from extinction. According to Eva Vergara of the Associated Press (AP), invading rodents with bodies upwards of eight inches in length have been eating...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com Penguins in the colder regions of the world are being threatened by man, despite man not actually being present. Two studies have pointed to climate change being the reason for why penguins that frolic in Antarctica are dying off. Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts believe that there will be an 81 percent reduction in the number of emperor penguins by 2100, bringing the population totals from 3,000 to as low as 500....
A previously unreleased study detailing the lewd and lascivious sexual behaviors of penguins, compiled during Captain Robert Scott's South Pole in the early 1900s, has finally been published after being suppressed for nearly a century because of explicit content. The paper, "The Sexual Habits of the Adélie Penguins," was written in 1915 by Dr. George Levick, a surgeon and medical officer during Scott's legendary 1910-1913 Antarctic expedition. His observations on the sex lives of those...
Scientists on Tuesday published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology their work on a completely reconstructed fossil of a giant penguin that lived in New Zealand some 25 million years ago, work that will give researchers insight into prehistoric penguin diversity. The fossil of the Kairuku -- Maori for “diver that returns with food” -- penguin, a bird that stood 4 feet 2 inches tall, was discovered embedded in a cliff at Waimate in the South Island in 1977 by Dr. Ewan Fordyce, a...
Latest Penguins Reference Libraries
The Antarctic Silverfish, (Pleuragramma antarcticum), is a member of the Notothenioidei family of fish. It is widely distributed around the Antarctic, but has largely disappeared from the western side of the northern Antarctic Peninsula based on 2010 research funded by the National Science Foundation. It is also found throughout the Southern Ocean. It grows to an average size of 6 inches, but has been known to reach lengths of up to 10 inches. It is usually pink with a silver tint, and...
The Snowy Sheathbill (Chionis alba) also known as the Pale-faced Sheathbill, is a species of bird that is mostly terrestrial (ground dwelling). It is Antarctica's only permanently land-based bird species. It occurs in Antarctica, the Scotia Arc, the South Orkneys and South Georgia. The extreme southern populations migrate northward in the winter. The adult is about 15 to 16 inches long with a wingspan of 30 to 31.5 inches. It is pure white except for its bill and pink warty face. Its...
The Galápagos Penguin (Spheniscus mendiculus) is a penguin common to the Galápagos Islands. It is the only penguin to live on the equator. Its nearest relatives are the African Penguin, the Magellanic Penguin and the Humboldt Penguin. The Galápagos Penguin occurs primarily on Fernandina Island and the west coast of Isabela Island, but small populations are scattered on other islands in the Galápagos archipelago. Galápagos Penguins grow to an average of 53 cm tall. They have...
The Humboldt Penguin (Spheniscus humboldti) is a South American species which breeds in coastal Peru and Chile. Its nearest relatives are the African Penguin, the Magellanic Penguin and the Galápagos Penguin. Thise penguin is named after Alexander von Humboldt, a naturalist and explorer who first described the animal. Humboldt Penguins are medium-sized, black and white penguins, growing to 53 cm tall. They have a black head with a white border running from behind the eye, around the...
The Magellanic penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) is a South American penguin which breeds in coastal Argentina, Chile and the Falkland Islands, with some migrating to Brazil. It is the most numerous of the Spheniscus penguins. Its nearest relatives are the African Penguin, the Humboldt Penguin and the Galápagos Penguin. This medium-sized, black and white penguin grows to an average of 76 cm tall. They have a black head with a broad white border running from behind the eye, around the...
