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[FantasticMrFoxdie]

Emperor penguins are elegant and adorable. They're also quite shy and skittish around humans.

Many penguins tracked in Antarctica have data-collecting devices underneath their skin. Usually, researchers have to get close to them and use hand readers to pick up a signal from the devices — which freaks the penguins out.

Yvon Le Maho, who has been studying penguins for more than 40 years, decided to tackle that problem.

"I thought maybe we can use rovers," Le Maho says.

...

"When a rover is approaching, the increase in heart rate is about the same that the bird has when another penguin is passing by," he says.

But the disguise has to be good.

"If you want to confuse the birds with fake penguins, it should be very, very well-designed," says Le Maho.

Le Maho first designed a fiberglass penguin, but the other penguins didn't buy it.To get in, the rover penguin had to really look the part.

With this special access, the chickcam got a shot of an emperor penguin laying an egg — a moment that hadn't been captured before.

That was TV gold, for sure, but the chick cam also produced some important science.

"I think in the year that we were there, with over 1,000 hours of footage that we gathered with our penguin cams, that was the equivalent of about, I believe, five years of research," Dalton says.


Cute overload video in Source (NPR)

For Science!

Chill Penguin if Old

 

[wanderingprostheyltite]

Well that was adorable, except that adult emperor call that sounded like the shrieks of some hell spawn hunting its prey. I still want to cuddle all of those babbies tho, so fluffy!

 

[neogaffer1]

Needs that bear is a Nazi text.

Edit: needs similar text to this:

 

[FantasticMrFoxdie]

Needs that bear is a Nazi text.

Edit: needs similar text to this:

lol that pic isn't real..is it?