New study (co-authored by Dr Tom Hart) uses tail feathers of Chinstraps and Adelies to track their vast migration routes
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wildmonster
Excerpts from 9 August 2017 BBC News website:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40868224"This works because the krill upon which the penguins feed incorporate into their own tissues a chemical signature of the ocean chemistry where they live. When the penguins then eat the krill, they in turn incorporate the krill chemistry, including the signature of where the krill live."
"The great thing about this new technique is that we can work out where an animal has been based on a sample of an animal’s tissues without it ever being tagged," said Dr Hart.
"We are going to continue to use this non-invasive technique on penguins, and it has great potential to be applied to other seabirds and marine mammals, such as whales and seals for example."
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AvastMH
moderator
Hello Woldmonster! Good to see you here! Thank you for posting this science for us. ggm02 also alerted me to this piece of fascinating science yesterday - it's great to see that we are all keeping a watch for penguin facts. I wondered if, whilst we wait for pictures, Tom might send us all a bunch of feathers and a chemistry kit - more 'hands-on' citizen science 😄 I'd love to know where are feathered friends head off to during winter 😃
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