Penguin Watch Talk

Adelie penguin chicks helping make a new fossil record.

  • yshish by yshish moderator, translator

    '...Not just any penguins will do. It has to be Adélie penguins. These amphibious Antarctic birds breed on solid ground – not ice – and carefully select pebbles to create their nests. That’s what traps their guano. As the penguins create a crap cap on their breeding ground, they preserve the remains of their meals and their deceased neighbors within a mix of sand, pebbles, and guano. And while they start off as relatively dark at first, the deep layers of penguin leavings eventually turn pink from the krill in the Adélie diet. In some places, these easily-identifiable layers are over three feet thick...'

    '...The soils also contain the bodies and bones of the penguins themselves. Some researchers have even uncovered complete penguin “mummies” within ornithogenic soils. The cold, dry conditions at the breeding grounds kept the bird remains in excellent condition, allowing paleogeneticists to extract and study DNA from penguin populations through time...'

    Click here to read the article. It's pretty cool! 😃

    Posted

  • Nickypeng by Nickypeng moderator

    Entombment in penguin poop.

    What a thought!

    Posted