"Middle-aged penguins, 5 to 11 years old, tended to have sync parades," Chiaradia explained. "We know from previous studies that these penguins are at the peak of their breeding performance, meaning they are more experienced." He suggested it is even comparable to adult humans of a similar age, income, fitness level and so on who choose to hang out together. Brenda Melton is a bird keeper at the San Francisco Zoo who cares for the zoo's Magellanic penguin colony, which consists of 55 individuals. She has not observed smaller parading groups but instead, the Magellanic penguins appear to all belong to one synced community. "The whole group often swims together and then comes back in together," Melton said. "They will even make their territory calls together." She suspects such group behavior for Magellanic penguins functions as it does for the little penguins, in offering protection from predators and in improving feeding strategies. In future, Chiaradia and his team hope to find out whether or not the synchronized movements on land carry over to swimming and hunting for food in the water. He said, "We aim to deploy diving loggers on penguins with high association levels and check if they are actually diving together." Related Links: |
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