Scientists have discovered a new, low-stress way to study penguins: send undercover rovers dressed as their babies.
A new report published Sunday in the journal Nature Methods found that studying penguins with small, remotely-operated rovers not only inflict less stress on the animals than a human visit, but also allow more accurate data to be collected.
“Approaching animals with a rover can reduce impact, as measured by heart rates and behaviour of king penguins,” the authors wrote in the study, “thus allowing such animals to be considered as undisturbed.”
In order to study the rover’s effect on the birds, a research team, led by the University of Strasbourg’s Yvon Le Maho, fitted 34 king penguins in Antarctica with external heart rate monitors and data recorders designed to measure reaction to the rover. When the team sent a plain rover in, they found that the penguins would react to it, sometimes hostilely, but allowed the instrument to get close enough to record readings. Upon observation, the birds’ heart rates were significantly lower and recovered more quickly compared to when a human was nearby.
The undercover side of the equation came in when the researchers turned to study the much more skittish emperor penguins. The rover, camouflaged as a penguin chick, drew no reaction from close to half of the normally shy population, while a quarter of the penguins curiously investigated the visitor. The rover was able to hide in a huddle of chicks and several adults even sang “a very special song like a trumpet” to the faux-penguin, Le Maho told the Associated Press.
The researchers believe that these findings can be used to equip future rovers to perform numerous other studies on penguins, other animals and climate change’s effect on them.
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