Adelie penguin helps emperor penguin chicks defend themselves against a nasty petrel

April 30, 2019 • 2:30 pm

Here’s a lovely clip from BBC Earth showing, among other things, a bunch of Emperor Penguin chicks fighting off the depredations of a hungry giant petrel. Look at the one in front who stands its ground, puffs itself up, and protects the others. And then an Adelie penguin comes along to help, saving members of an unrelated species. Altruism?

Whatever it is, it’s fantastic behavior.  And look at those two robot penguin-cams!

 

h/t: Moto

24 thoughts on “Adelie penguin helps emperor penguin chicks defend themselves against a nasty petrel”

      1. F××k it this phone is pushing me off… anyhow they are (NASA) finding more groups of penguin they never new existed by following the poo trail from the ISS…

        2. There is a trail of penguin poo from the ISS to the ground? No, hang on, that couldn’t work. Not just because of the texture of freeze-dried penguin poo and the penguins-feeding facilities on the ISS (approximately zero), but the flight characteristics. Depending on the air clarity, it is going to e very hard for the ISS to see much on the ground (let alone fine detail) north or south of either 60th parallel.

          1. Ok, what the Nasa video showed was that they could see the breeding grounds from space (ISS) as these groups, nurseries if you wiĺl moved about. They needed fresh snow for drinking, they actually ate it and had to move around constantly to maintain a fresh supply, as they poo out their current location. These poo deposits can be seen from space, only recently have scientists recognized what to look for. No sure your just having me on but have a look Space.com I haven’t made this up lol

          2. Much more likely from something in a polar orbit. MODIS maybe. Most Earth-observing spacecraft use a more or less polar orbit (inclination 80 – 100 degrees), precisely because such allow direct observation of almost the whole of the Earth’s surface at a low inclination to reduce the effects of observing through thick atmosphere. If you’re observing with a lens with a 90deg field of view (FoV) then the atmospheric effects at the edge of the FoV will be almost 50% more than in the middle of the FoV. This is why you don’t try to do Earth-observation science from the ISS. (Whether you describe other work in a way such that people can believe the work was done from the ISS is a different question.)
            The ISS is in it’s 51 degree inclination not for any science reason but to make it possible to launch components with the Space Shuttle and for the Shuttle to have a reasonable manoeuvering leeway in the tanks. (the useful side effect of being able to launch to/ land from Baikolnur at 46 deg N was a part of the design too).
            When I was trying to track the day-to-day movements of the Petermann Ice Island up at around 75degN,
            I was using the MODIS instrument on either the Aqua or Terra satellite – I forget which. Since we were operating at 47 degrees but right in the line of the iceberg, I’d been tasked with keeping a watching brief on it while we were [EDIT] having interesting times. Once someone got along the iceberg and confirmed that it had elevations nearly 1/5 th of our water depth, we decided that it wasn’t a threat we needed to concern ourselves with.
            I haven’t made this up, and it’s not on Space.com because it’s not a bang-whizz clickbait jollity. Actually, I can’t remember the last time I even considered looking at Space.com – it’s not worth the effort because you have to check every word against original sources. In which case you may as well go to the original sources.
            I kept some notes on that iceberg, and returned to them when it was less of a pressing concern. Ah, found them, some snorkelling photos from that job too. There was a bizarre appropriateness about sitting under a palm tree, sweating, and trying to find a 100sq.km iceberg with some rocket science as the rig mechanic struggled to repair a Victorian-tech chain drive transmission. Or whatever it was we’d broken.
            The pirates from that job had their appeals against life imprisonment dismissed last week. Maybe they want the death penalty to be re-instated instead?

          3. Sorry Mr G-A, I’ve just seen this reply and thanks for the insights and stories (as they say) but I’ve also put you crook, it was not Space.com but rather NASA Earth Observatory , my apologies for this.
            https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/38868/scientists-locate-penguins-by-what-they-leave-behind
            I think this would be of interest to you but there are other links as you will see.
            The footage i saw included video which as i reply can’t locate unfortunately but will be somewhere i guess. I agree Space.com is generally, fodder. Read your link and some updates though… very interesting, thanks for that. Your last bit about pirates was lost on me not sure where this fits in.

          4. When I was last working on MODIS imagery – after moving off the Iceberg Alley job – I went to working off the East African coast, with a considerable threat from Somali pirates. One party of them who’d succeeded in gaining control of an 8000-odd ton vessel near our work place had got caught. This was back in 2011. I was under the impression that they’d been executed for piracy, but it turns out they’d tried another appeal and got commuted to a life sentence.
            It’s just coincidence that the use of polar imagery from satellites and this bunch resurfaced into my time line at the same time.

        3. I find it therapeutic to teach the Bloody AutoIncorrect on my phone to spell “Bloody AutoIncorrect” in as few screen strokes as possible. I had it as low as 6 strokes, but with some interfering other languages it has gone up to 8 strokes at the moment.

    2. (in voce Eric Idle) “He’s not a penguin, he’s a naughty naughty dinosaur!”
      Or even, given the demeanour of Emperor Penguins, a haughty naughty dinosaur.

  5. Why doesn’t anyone feel sorry for the poor petrel? No other food around; he/she is probably starving. Plus the penguins keep ganging up on him/her!

  7. Fantastic short video but not sure I agree it being a ‘nasty’ petrel.

  9. I’m just wondering how similar Adélie chicks are to Emperor chicks? Hmmm, the search suggests there is a recipe for “Adélie Chicken”, presumably for some monarchical arborescence.
    Looking at some videos, when they reach their maximum size, Adélie chicks are similar in size to the adults (fattening up before the moult to adult plumage and abandonment by the adults) and a similar monotone grey to the Emperor chicks. I think it’s perfectly feasible that the adult Adélie simply mistook the chicks for Adélie chicks – or it was close enough to not matter to the programming.

  10. Fascinating

    I had the sound off, but it was too easy to let a soundtrack run in my mind – I gave the petrel a thick accent of some type – like the orcs in LOTR – “But I just want a little tasty one that’s ’round the coh-NA!” “No you won’t!” (Frodo)

  11. Altruism from the Adele? could be, but I doubt it. It just saw the opportunity for a fight, anytime, anywhere, any size.lol

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