Birds, features and articles | Educational Science

Feb 17, 2015

Penguins Are Well Dressed, But Have Poor Taste

Despite their tuxedo style, when it comes to enjoying food, penguins have poor taste, a new study finds. These flightless birds can't taste the savoriness of fish or the sweetness of fruit, because over the course of evolution, they have lost the ability to taste all but salty and sour...

Mar 3, 2015

Secret Hideout Helped Penguins Survive the Ice Age

Earth's last ice age was so cold that even Antarctica's emperor penguins had trouble with the chill, a new study finds. Just three populations of emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri) likely survived the last ice age, which occurred from about 19,500 to 16,000 years ago, with one such population likely setting...

Mar 3, 2015

Penguins Rapidly Conquered New Zealand After Humans Ate Rivals

Bones left behind by a penguin that was eaten to extinction reveal that a remarkably fast turnover in species occurred after Polynesian seafarers wiped out New Zealand's weird wildlife, a new study reports. Archaeological evidence has already confirmed the first humans to arrive in New Zealand treated the islands like...

May 1, 2015

Penguins Use Poop to Melt Ice, Make Baby Nurseries (Video)

Gentoo penguins have given the term nesting a whole new meaning. The penguins poop on their frozen landscape in the Antarctic to melt it, creating the ideal location to rear their young when the time comes, new video footage suggests. Though most humans wouldn't consider poop an appropriate decoration for...

Jul 28, 2015

Endangered Penguins Charm, from Tiny to King Size (Photos)

David Oehler is curator of ornithology at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)'s Bronx Zoo. Julie Larsen Maher is staff photographer for WCS, the first woman to hold the position since the society's founding in 1895. The authors contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Penguins are...

Aug 28, 2015

Using Loopholes, Nature May Save Galápagos Penguins (Op-Ed)

Raghu Murtugudde is a professor at the University of Maryland's Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) and the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science. He is currently a visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Pune, India. Murtugudde contributed this article to Live Science's Expert...

Dec 16, 2015

Penguin Candid Camera: Little Birds Reveal Hunting Secrets

Wearing video cameras, the world's smallest penguins have revealed their hunting secrets: The little blue-hued birds swim together to stalk groups of prey, but when it comes to catching and killing their meals, it's every penguin for itself. The aptly named little penguin (Eudyptula minor) is the smallest living species...

Feb 16, 2016

In Photos: Adélie Penguins of East Antarctica

A colony of Adélie penguins, some 150,000 individuals, on Cape Denison in Commonwealth Bay, in East Antarctica, went missing after a Rhode Island-sized iceberg called B09B crashed into the bay's Mertz Glacier; the giant chunk of ice meant the birds had to trek much farther to snag food. Here's a...

Feb 16, 2016

Let's All Chill: Antarctica's Adélie Penguins Are Probably Fine

Let's give the penguins a little credit. The news reported around the world was startling — that some 150,000 Adélie penguins have died in Antarctica because a colossal iceberg cut off their sea access. But there's no proof yet that the birds are dead. No one has actually found 150,000...

Mar 17, 2017

Happier Feet: Antarctica Home to Millions More Penguins Than Thought

Millions more Adélie penguins are waddling along the icy Antarctic continent than scientists previously thought. Researchers had estimated that about 2.3 million Adélie penguins called East Antarctica home. But a new survey more than doubles that estimate, to 5.9 million individuals in that area. A team of scientists completed a...

Apr 24, 2017

Waddle for Science! Penguins Join Protest March

Science advocates around the world turned out in droves to take part in the March for Science over the weekend, and the demonstration even found support from members of the animal kingdom: African penguins at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California took part in a mini March for Science, waddling...

Jun 13, 2017

Poop Stains Help Scientists Track Antarctic Penguin Colonies

Adélie penguins in Antarctica nest in large colonies, and these groupings leave behind massive poop stains on the icy landscape — marks that are so large they can be tracked by satellites. For more than 30 years, scientists have used these poop (known as guano) stains as markers to monitor...

Dec 12, 2017

Giant Penguin: This Ancient Bird Was As Tall As a Refrigerator

The fossils of a refrigerator-size penguin were so gargantuan that the scientists who discovered them initially thought they belonged to a giant turtle. The ancient behemoth is now considered the second-largest penguin on record. The newfound penguin species would have stood nearly 6 feet tall (1.8 meters) and weighed about...

Mar 2, 2018

Poop Stains Lead Researchers to Hidden 'Supercolony' of 1.5 Million Penguins

Explorers beware: The Danger Islands — a remote handful of rocks huddled among sheets of treacherous sea ice near the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula — are full of penguins. One might not imagine penguins to be dangerous per se, but then again, one has probably never seen (or...

Mar 9, 2018

Antarctic Penguins Find Research Camera, Proceed to Take Most Adorable Selfies

The best-dressed animals may also be the vainest — at least if their propensity for selfies is any indication. A new video shows two emperor penguins in Antarctica interacting with a camera left on the ice, and the result is even cuter than you'd expect. Explorer Eddie Gault left the...