Antarctic penguins 27/04/2019 – Posted in: Daily News – Tags: , ,

  Antarctic Penguins     

News Flash

The second largest Emperor penguin suffer huge breeding failure after nearly all chicks born over three years died as their icy Antarctic habitat shrinks.

Scientists blame the sharp decline on climate and weather conditions that break apart the “fast ice” sea ice that is connected to the land where the emperor penguins stay to breed.

Study Findings

The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) used satellite imagery to study the behaviour of the Halley Bay colony. It is located in the Weddell Sea due south of Cape Hope, which normally sees up to 25,000 penguin pairs mate each year. They found that in 2016, when abnormally warm and stormy weather broke up the sea-ice on which the penguins normally raise their young, almost all the chicks died.

Emperor penguin

  • The emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) is the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species and is endemic to Antarctica.
  • It has several adaptations to facilitate this, including an unusually structured hemoglobin to allow it to function at low oxygen levels, solid bones to reduce barotrauma, and the ability to reduce its metabolism and shut down non-essential organ functions.
  • Penguins are flightless birds that are highly adapted for the marine environment. They are excellent swimmers, and can dive to great depths, (emperor penguins can dive to over 500 metres). Their shape enables extreme agility underwater; the feet and tail act as a rudder while the flippers act as propellers.

British Antarctic Survey

British Antarctic Survey (BAS) delivers and enables world-leading interdisciplinary research in the Polar Regions. Its skilled science and support staff based in Cambridge, Antarctica and the Arctic, work together to deliver research that uses the Polar Regions to advance our understanding of Earth as a sustainable planet.

 

Source: The Hindu

 

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