{"id":1159,"date":"2008-12-30T09:01:29","date_gmt":"2008-12-30T17:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mlmlblog.wordpress.com\/?p=1159"},"modified":"2008-12-30T09:01:29","modified_gmt":"2008-12-30T17:01:29","slug":"lost-in-a-sea-of-penguins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/2008\/12\/30\/lost-in-a-sea-of-penguins\/","title":{"rendered":"Lost in a Sea of Penguins"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kristen
Kristen Green<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

by Kristen Green, Ichthyology Lab<\/p>\n

Seven species of penguins<\/span> can be found on the Antarctic continent and sub-Antarctic islands. King George Island<\/span> has been described as a ‘cosmopolitan’ place for penguins<\/span>, as three of these seven species can be found here: Adelies, Gentoos, and Chinstraps. Each species has evolved to fill different niche to coexist successfully. Adelie, Gentoo, and Chinstrap lay their eggs a few weeks apart. This means that the chick hatching and fledging (when the chicks enter the water to forage on their own) are also separated by a few weeks for each species.<\/p>\n

\"Lara
Mom, I'm hungry! A Gentoo peguin chick taps its parent's beak to summon a freshly delivered meal. (photo: Lara Asato)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This may be one adaptation to lessen the competition for shared food resources, i.e. Antarctic krill<\/span>, during the critical time period when chicks are being nurtured. The Chinstrap penguins<\/span><\/span> are the last to lay eggs, and the first Chinstrap penguin observation on the island was actually 6-foot-tall Dave, the field leader who created a fairly elaborate Chinstrap penguin costume for Halloween from our excellent supply of trash bags, rags, and cardboard!<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, we are still tracking and banding Adelie and Gentoo penguins<\/span> to monitor reproductive success<\/span>. We take daily attendance at each site where we have banded birds. This kind of makes me feel like a schoolteacher, as I check off whether the female or male is present and incubating the eggs on a particular day\u2026\u2026except for the day when a nest with banded birds simply disappeared. I walked into the colony, and checked off all the other birds at my site, only to realize I couldn’t find the banded bird that should be at my feet. I consulted my map, looked down\u2026..consulted my map, looked down\u2026.but couldn’t find the bird I had recorded in this spot every other day this week. Surrounded by hundreds of identical, cackling birds, I had a sinking feeling I was losing my mind.<\/p>\n

\"lara-097\"
Where's that one penguin? Where's Waldo? Where's my mind??? (photo: Lara Asato)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I guiltily admitted this to the field leader. He laughed and said if a nest fails i.e. the eggs have been lost due to predation, weather etc., the penguins<\/span> will abandon it. Regardless, working alone around penguins<\/span> sure makes you second guess your sanity sometimes!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Kristen Green, Ichthyology Lab Seven species of penguins can be found on the Antarctic continent and sub-Antarctic islands. King George Island has been described as a ‘cosmopolitan’ place for penguins, as three of these seven species can be found here: Adelies, Gentoos, and Chinstraps. Each species has evolved to fill different niche to coexist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":291,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[41],"class_list":["post-1159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-antarctica"],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"MLML Student Life","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/291"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}