Birds, features and articles | Educational Science

Sep 10, 2018

Here's Why There Are Hundreds of Ancient, Mummified Penguins in Antarctica

The bodies of hundreds of mummified penguins in Antarctica aren't a sign of an ancient illness that swept through the icy continent, nor are they the remains of a penguin massacre by a ravenous predator. Rather, these penguins, who were mummified by the cold, dry Antarctica environment, likely died from...

Oct 16, 2018

Meet Sphen and Magic, the Same-Sex Penguin Couple Raising an Egg in Captivity

If you've been keeping up on your Australian penguin gossip blogs (of course, you have!), then you already know about Sydney's hottest new celebrity couple, Sphengic. Sphen and Magic (together, Sphengic) are two male gentoo penguins living in captivity at the Sea Life Sydney Aquarium. They are young, in love...

Dec 12, 2018

How This Supercolony of 1.5 Million Penguins Stayed Hidden for Nearly 3,000 Years

This year, scientists announced an incredible discovery by looking at poop stains in satellite images — 1.5 million Adélie penguins were living and thriving on a little patch in Antarctica surrounded by treacherous sea ice called the Danger Islands. It turns out that these elusive seabirds had lived on the...

Jan 8, 2019

Thousands of Female Penguins Are Being Stranded in South America

Near the southern tip of South America, thousands of ladies — wives, mothers, anchovy enthusiasts — are vanishing from their nests. The females in question are Magellanic penguins — a mid-size species of black-and-white bird native to South America's Patagonia region. When not breeding in the latter part of the...

Feb 14, 2019

How Do Emperor Penguin Dads Stop Their Eggs From Freezing?

They've become the stars of many a nature documentary and cartoon, beloved for their fluffiness and impeccable waddle. Yet, when it comes to breeding, you might say that emperor penguins have drawn the evolutionary short straw. As if life weren't already tough enough in the mostly frigid Antarctic landscape they...

Feb 14, 2019

In Photos: The Emperor Penguin's Beautiful and Extreme Breeding Season

The ultimate parents (Image credit: Stefan Christmann/BBC America)The fifth episode of BBC America's new series, Dynasties, follows a colony of several thousand emperor penguins as they brave the elements to breed and raise their young during Antarctica's ruthless winter. Catch the episode this Saturday, Feb. 16, at 9 p.m. EST/8...

Apr 28, 2019

Why Do All the Babies in This Massive Penguin Colony Keep Drowning?

The second-largest colony of emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri) in the world appears to be collapsing, after rough seas drowned all of its babies three winters in a row. The Halley Bay colony once accounted for 5 to 9% of the global emperor penguin population, according to the British Antarctic Survey...

Aug 14, 2019

Newly Discovered 'Monster' Penguin Was As Tall As an Adult Human

Fish swam for their lives when they encountered a forbidding, ancient monster penguin that would have towered over today's largest penguin, the emperor, a new study finds. The newly described aquatic beast, dubbed Crossvallia waiparensis, measured 5 feet, 3 inches (1.6 meters) tall, about the height of an adult woman....

Nov 18, 2019

'Gay' Penguin Couple Had No Egg of Their Own. So They Stole One.

A pair of mated male penguins in a Dutch zoo were so eager for offspring that they stole an egg from another pair of penguins. Two male black-footed penguins (Spheniscus demersus, also known as African penguins) at DierenPark Amersfoort zoo in the Netherlands were recently found incubating a purloined egg....

Feb 5, 2020

Jackass penguins have a jackass language not so different from English

African penguins (Spheniscus demersus) bear the unfortunate nickname jackass penguins because they communicate through honking, donkey-like brays. Laugh at them if you like, but a new study suggests that their jackass language actually follows the same basic linguistic rules as ours. In the study, published Wednesday (Feb. 5) in the...

Jul 10, 2020

Penguins shoot 'poop bombs' more than 4 feet, incredibly important study finds

If the Olympics awarded medals for long-distance pooping, penguins would take home the gold. These tubby, aquatic birds can squirt arcing jets of poop to distances nearly twice their own body length, and scientists recently calculated just how much force their tiny rectums produce in order to do so —...

Aug 5, 2020

Poop stains visible from space reveal hidden colonies of Antarctic penguins

Penguins might be good at hiding from humans, but they can't hide their poop from the giant satellites circling our planet. New imagery revealed penguin poop stains on the white blankets of the coldest continent. And those dark spots suggest that there are nearly 20% more emperor penguin colonies in...

Oct 6, 2020

Dozens of ancient penguin 'mummies' discovered at lost nesting site in Antarctica

On a dry, windy cape in southern Antarctica, the ground is strewn with dead, mummified penguins. The rocks around them are littered with bones, pebbles and guano stains — the telltale marks of a freshly abandoned Adélie penguin colony. Scenes like this are common around Antarctica's Ross Sea, which is...

Nov 6, 2020

The world's largest iceberg is on a collision course with an Antarctic penguin refuge

The world's largest iceberg may be on a collision course with a wildlife haven in the South Atlantic Ocean, researchers at the British Antarctic Society (BAS) reported. If the gargantuan berg becomes grounded near South Georgia island (a British overseas territory and one of the South Sandwich Islands), it could...

Jan 27, 2021

Adorable 'confused penguin' charms the internet: What really happened?

If you've ever lost track of your friends in a crowd, you'll likely empathize with the endearingly confused rockhopper penguin in a recent viral video. The bird became separated from a penguin group and began hopping away with a bunch of strangers; however, a penguin from the first group seemingly...