Satellite photos showing poop stains in the West Antarctic snow and ice have revealed a previously unknown breeding colony of emperor penguins.
A never-before-seen emperor penguin colony — one of only 66 known to exist — has been spotted by accident in satellite photographs of West Antarctica that clearly show their guano, or droppings, staining the ice.
Fretwell told Live Science that he was looking at sea ice loss in photographs from the European Space Agency's two Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellites when he spotted the distinctive signs of an emperor penguin colony."I could see what looked like a very small brown stain on the ice," he said.
Emperor penguins exclusively breed on packed sea ice. This reliance on sea ice, however, also makes the penguins vulnerable to its loss in a warming climate; and West Antarctica has already been badly affected. Stately penguinsEmperor penguins are the tallest and heaviest of all penguins, typically reaching up to 39 inches in height and weighing up to 100 pounds They get their name from their dramatic black, white and yellow plumage.
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