Adelie penguin feeding, new research

This 2016 video is called All About the Adélie Penguin | Continent 7: Antarctica.

From the BBC:

21 January 2013 Last updated at 20:02

Cameras reveal penguins’ efficient hunting techniques

Intimate details of Adelie penguin feeding behaviour have been filmed by Japanese scientists.

Using video cameras and accelerometers attached to free-swimming penguins, researchers have gained a unique insight into the birds’ hunting techniques.

Adelie penguins adopted different strategies depending on whether they were hunting fish or krill.

The findings are published in the journal PNAS.

Lead scientist Dr Yuuki Watanabe from the National Institute of Polar Research in Tokyo, Japan, told BBC Nature: “Foraging is the most basic activity of animals, but details of foraging behaviour are poorly known, especially in marine animals.”

Although previous studies had examined Adelie penguin’s (Pygoscelis adeliae) foraging style using video apparatus or sensor technology, results were limited.

“Previously some researchers attached video cameras to marine animals to observe their foraging behaviour, but this was just a few hours.”

“In other studies, researchers attached various sensors to marine animals to record indirect signals of prey capture. This method lasted for long periods, but has never been validated in the field,” said Dr Watanabe.

To overcome these difficulties, the Japanese scientists decided to use a combination of video footage and indirect signals.

Indirect signals include acceleration of the head, temperature changes in the digestive tract or beak opening movements, all of which indicate that feeding may have occurred.

Modern technologies mean that accelerometers are small enough for the scientists to attach two accelerators to each penguin – one on the head and another on the back.

“We recorded both movies and indirect signals, successfully validating the indirect signals using video footage,” explained Dr Watanabe.

“We assumed that penguins move their heads relative to their body when they capture prey; this was confirmed by the footage.”

Using these methods the team was able to ascertain when and how the penguins were feeding.

Fast food

With the results of the combined technologies, scientists were able to draw further conclusions about the Adelie penguins’ feeding strategy.

The penguins’ foraging area is largely covered by marine ice and their primary food sources include two species of krill and Pagothenia borchgrevinki – a fish whose blood contains antifreeze proteins.

The Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) is a shrimp-like crustacean that grows to approximately 6cm long. Antarctic coastal krill (E. crystallorophias) lives farther south than any other species of krill.

Krill is an important part of the Antarctic ecosystem, with around half of its biomass being consumed annually by marine predators such as penguins, squid, whales and fish.

When capturing krill, the penguins swam upward then changed direction at the point of predation, making darting movements with their head.

The team discovered that Adelie penguins can catch krill at a rate of up to two krill per second, despite krill displaying escape behaviours.

Furthermore the researchers found that the camouflage defence of the fish P. borchgrevinki didn’t work with foraging Adelie penguins.

The penguins were regularly able to capture the fish from below – the direction from which the fish is camouflaged against the backdrop of marine ice.

Dr Watanabe said: “I was surprised by how the penguins repeatedly captured P. borchgrevinki underneath the sea ice. This fish is known to be well camouflaged.”

The technology used to support the findings has a wider application for further study. Dr Watanabe commented, “Our method can be applied to many marine animals to understand the spatial and temporal variability of foraging behaviour.”

April 2013.  Elaine Heron took these images of an apparently leucistic penguin on the Antarctic Peninsula that she saw in February this year. This is not the first leucistic Adelie penguin that we have had reported to us. We also have an image of a bird that was seen and photographed in 1963 on Avian Island, off Adelaide Island on the Antarctic Peninsula in 1963, near the British Antarctic Survey Base by reader Mike Fleet.

To get to the Cape Royds penguin colony, home to several thousand googly-eyed Adélie penguins, you can either make the bone-chilling two-hour snowmobile drive over the sea ice from McMurdo Station, or if weather and winds permit, zip over in 10 minutes by helicopter. Either way, you’ll pass hundreds of seals sprawled slug-like on the ice; pass through the shadow of the volcano Mount Erebus, hunched and smoking; and if you’re lucky, spot an elegant snow petrel gliding by: here.

Footage from penguin-mounted mini video recorders shows four species of penguin eating jellyfish and other gelatinous animals of the open ocean, a food source penguins were not previously believed to partake of, scientists report.

Related articles

• Penguin-cam reveals feeding spree (independent.ie)
• Penguins are lethally efficient hunting machines, video reveals (guardian.co.uk)
• ‘Critter Cam’ Reveals Secrets of Penguin Hunts (livescience.com)
• New Antarctic penguin discoveries (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Penguins’ Private Lives Recorded in Antarctica (livescience.com)
• Climate Change Winners: Adelie Penguins (scientificamerican.com)
• Climate Change Winners: Receding Ice Fields Facilitate Colony Expansion and Altered Dynamics in an Adélie Penguin Metapopulation (plosone.org)
• Climate Change Means More Adélie Penguins (blogs.smithsonianmag.com)
• Climate change winners: Adélie penguin population expands as ice fields recede (sciencedaily.com)