On a remote island in Antarctica, a new city of penguins has been developed through the help of their solid waste.
An unknown supercolony of Adélie penguins, which was previously undiscovered, has been found on Antarctica’s isolated Danger Islands. The discovery was found with the help of the bird’s waste stains on rocks that were pointed out by NASA’s satellite imagery of the islands.
As per their study published in the journal Scientific Reports, over 1.5 million penguins live on the remote island, which is more than the entire Antarctic Peninsula altogether. The penguin population was counted via a combination of hand-counting, drone footage and a neural-net-counting program.
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The co-author Heather Lynch said that at first when the data suggested the presence of so many penguins on a remote island, she thought it was a mistake. “We were surprised to find so many penguins on these islands, especially because some of these islands were not known to have penguins.”
Also, researchers inform that even the penguin population on the west side of Antarctic Peninsula is different from this one found on the east side. The co-author Stephanie Jenouvrier exclaimed, “We want to understand why. Is it linked to the extended sea ice condition over there? Food availability? That's something we don't know.”
Live Science reported, the discovery marks a major impact because penguins have been decreasing in number since the past years because of the growing climate change. “Not only do the Danger Islands hold the largest population of Adélie penguins on the Antarctic Peninsula, they also appear to have not suffered the population declines found along the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula that are associated with recent climate change," study co-author Michael Polito said.
Moreover, researchers warn that these penguins should be protected from the threats of fishing and further climate change. Rod Downie, head of polar programs at WWF told The Guardian, “This exciting discovery shows us just how much more there still is to learn about this amazing and iconic species of the ice. But it also reinforces the urgency to protect the waters off the coast of Antarctica to safeguard Adélie penguins from the dual threats of overfishing and climate change.”