Recently, the "elegant person" penguin emoticon has become very popular in the circle of friends ~ and has attracted a lot of netizens to imitate it. Have you often received "harassing" emoticons from your friends recently? This set of penguin pictures comes from Shutterstock, a foreign picture material website.An artist, 3Dalia, uploaded this set of penguin pictures one after another in 2014. Because they look very similar, many people mistakenly regarded them as "Penguins of Madagascar".
Image source: Screenshot from social platform
So, are the "elegant" penguins "the same penguins from Madagascar"?
"Elite" Penguin Archetype
The cartoon "Penguins of Madagascar" has this name just because the background of the story takes place in Madagascar.
There are no penguins on this island. There are South African penguins (or African penguins, spotted-billed ringed penguins) at the southernmost tip of the African continent where it is located. Their appearance is very different from the penguins in cartoons. They have obvious spots and a black stripe on their bellies.
African penguins, image source: Wikipedia
The prototype of the penguin in the cartoon is more like the Adélie penguin, but also incorporates some "white face" elements of the white-cheeked and yellow-browed penguin (royal penguin).
Left: Adélie penguin, right: White-cheeked yellow-browed penguin with white face. Image source: Wikipedia
Of course, there is another type of penguin called striped-cheeked penguin (or chinstrap penguin). They are very similar to the penguins in cartoons. They also have black tops and white faces, but they have a very obvious black line on their faces, just like chinstraps.
Tattooed cheek penguin with a "chin band" on its chin, picture source: Wikipedia
Therefore, the penguin in the cartoon is not the penguin that exists in reality. It may have been created by the animation author based on various penguin prototypes.
In cartoons, the adventures of the penguin protagonists are very exciting, and in real life, the life of one of their prototypes, the Adélie penguin, is also quite exciting.
They are one of the very few penguins that can nest on the Antarctic continent, and in their lives, they often perform scenes of "poaching other people's homes" and making other penguins "shit their heads."
Poaching by “elegant people”
For Adélie penguins, reproduction is also a top priority. When looking for a partner to breed, they also need a "house" of their own.
It is said to be a house, but it is actually very simple. It is just a small pile of rocks that can barely separate itself from the ice. Such small piles of rocks keep penguin eggs and newly hatched chicks dry.
A good "house" can attract the attention of female penguins. Every breeding season, male penguins will go to the breeding area in advance and start building their own "mansion".
It is not an easy task to collect stones from all directions one by one into the nest. Sometimes male penguins need to travel long distances to find stones.
At this time, their empty nests will attract the "evil eyes" of other penguins. It is much more convenient to "find" rocks at a neighbor's house than to travel a long distance to find them.
As a result, some Adélie penguins choose to "get" stones directly from other people's nests, which can be regarded as "poaching" in a literal sense.
Image source: BBC documentary "Frozen Planet"
And scientists at Oregon State University also discovered an interesting phenomenon (the study was also published in the 2021 issue of Polar Biology). If Adélie penguin nests are built closer to the edge of the colony, their nests are more likely to be stolen.
This may be because when penguins are looking for stones, most penguins have to go through the nesting site of the penguin colony and look for stones outside (after all, all the suitable stones inside have been picked up by other penguins).
The nests at the edge of the penguin colony have a relatively large flow of people (or "goose" traffic). The more penguins coming and going, the more penguins will look at the empty nest with evil intentions.
Also, in a group, if a penguin is discovered by the "house owner" while stealing stones, the house owner will definitely chase it and bite and beat it.
And if a penguin is discovered by a neighbor of the homeowner while stealing rocks, the neighbor will also issue a warning. In the eyes of the neighbor, the thief will also pose a threat to his nest.
Compared with nests located in the "central area", nests on the edge have relatively few neighbors, which also creates conditions for penguins with evil intentions to "commit crimes".
If the nests in the penguin colony are also clearly priced, perhaps the "house prices" in the core areas will be higher than those in the peripheral areas.
"Elegant people" "make" friends with their neighbors
Although there are many neighbors in the central area, which allows you to take a closer look at the nest, the penguins here also face a problem because there are so many neighbors around them - they may be sprayed with their neighbors' poop. That's right, it's literally "shit to the point of dripping".
Because penguins do not easily leave the nest when they are incubating eggs, but they inevitably have to poop. If they are all pooped in the nest, the eggs may freeze on the rocks after the poop freezes, and too much poop residue can easily breed bacteria.
So the penguins thought of a good way. They would move their buttocks to the edge of the nest, and then use force to spray their poop outside the nest.
This spray is so powerful that penguins can spray their poop 40 centimeters away from a stone nest slightly above the ground.
You know, the average length of Adélie penguins is only 30 to 50 centimeters, which is almost equivalent to spraying poop a distance of the same body length. If converted to humans, it is equivalent to a person with a height of 1.7 meters ejecting poop a distance of about 1.7 meters.
A 2003 study published in Polar Biology actually calculated the pressure exerted by Adélie and striped-cheeked penguins when they "squirt" (incidentally, this research also won the 2005 Ig Nobel Prize).
This study first estimated the viscosity of penguin poop, which is about the same as the viscosity of olive oil (I hope you don’t eat olive oil often). Then based on the viscosity data, the distance data of poop ejection, and the diameter of the cloaca (anus) of Adélie penguins, it was calculated that the pressure generated by their anus when defecating can reach up to 60kPa, which is 4 to 5 times greater than when humans poop.
Fluid dynamics study of penguin squirting, picture source: Reference 3
This article also mentioned that penguins do not seem to choose a specific direction when they spray their feces. The poop will be sprayed radially outward from the center of the nest.
If you see such a "border" in Antarctica, it is just the "result" of penguins spraying poop.
Penguin poop "enchantment", the picture is taken from the Internet. In fact, in addition to Adélie penguins and striped-cheeked penguins, there are also some penguins who have similar behavior.
Such behavior does keep one's own nest clean, but if the nest is close to a neighbor's nest, it will be miserable. The poop of penguin neighbors will spray into each other's nests. If there are still penguins incubating eggs in the nest, they will have to "water" a friend.
The poop of "elegant people", the "oasis" of Antarctica
While it may seem uncivilized for penguins to squirt their poop around their nests (especially if it's onto their neighbors), penguin poop is very important to Antarctic ecology.
Especially penguins like Adélie penguins and emperor penguins that nest on the Antarctic continent.
When foraging, they need to go to the sea around the Antarctic continent to find food. When they return to the Antarctic continent with a full stomach, the poop they excrete will bring important nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus to this relatively barren continent.
These nutrients can bring nutrients to algae, lichens, and mosses, and other microorganisms can thrive on this basis, forming an "oasis" centered on penguin poop. It can be said that penguins spray out not only their poop, but also the "hope" of Antarctic microorganisms.
You see, the life of the Adélie penguin is no less beautiful than in the cartoon. They have "understood" "weird" behaviors such as digging into the corners of their neighbors' homes and "pouring" their friends with their neighbors.
The reason for this behavior is that they live on the Antarctic continent, which is one of the harshest environments on earth. And these "weird" behaviors themselves also bear witness to their courage and determination to persevere in the harsh Antarctic environment.
"Elegant People": You see, we penguins are born with the capital of fire.
References
[1]Morandini, V., Dugger, K. M., Lescroël, A., Schmidt, A. E., & Ballard, G. (2021). Maintenance of nest quality in Adélie penguins Pygoscelis adeliae: an additional benefit to life in the center. Polar Biology, 44(8), 1553-1562.[2]https://polarjournal.net/adelie-penguins-the-stone-thieves/[3]Meyer-Rochow, V. B., & Gal, J. (2003). Pressures produced when penguins pooh—calculations on avian defaecation. Polar Biology, 27(1), 56-58.[4]https://phys.org/news/2019-05-antarctic-biodiversity-hotspots-penguins-poop.html
Planning and production
Author丨Scientific scraps, popular science creator
Review丨Huang Chengming, Researcher at the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Distinguished Professor at Hainan University, Supervisor of the Zoological Society of China, Director of the China Wildlife Conservation Association
Planning | Fu Sijia
Editor丨Fu Sijia
Reviewer丨Xu Lai, Zhang Linlin