What should penguins do if climate warming causes the Antarctic to disappear?
Chubby, chubby penguins walking left and right bring vitality to the frozen land. The slow-moving birds on land have completely changed their appearance in the water, and their skills are vigorous, catching up with the fish in the upstream and diving into the deep sea. Recorded emperor penguins can dive to the bottom of 550 meters and hold their breath for 22 minutes.
The picture above shows the familiar emperor penguin, with golden feathers on its ears and color spreading to its neck. Colorful feathers add a little warmth to the black and white body. It is the largest penguin, with an average height of 1. 1m and a weight of 30kg. It is also the master with the highest diving ability in the group, but the swimming speed of emperor penguins is not the first. The fastest is the Papua penguin, and there is also a name called the white-browed penguin.
The white-browed penguin, as its name implies, has a circle of white feathers on its eyebrows, which surrounds its head like a headscarf. Smaller than emperor penguins and king penguins, it ranks third in the population, with an average height of 0.7 meters and a weight of 6 kilograms. The average-looking white-browed penguin is the speed champion in the group, with the fastest speed of 35 km/h.
Also living in Antarctica, there are many differences between the white-browed penguin and the emperor penguin. Details determine success or failure. When the Antarctic environment changed dramatically, the emperor penguin faced a crisis, but the white-browed penguin got a chance. Unlike people's panic, climate warming will be a fatal blow to Antarctic penguins. There are endangered groups and rising stars in the turmoil.
Next, let's take a look at the differences between the two penguins in their respective habitats and breeding periods, and then talk about the impact of climate warming on them.
Emperor penguin
Emperor penguins spread all over the Antarctic continent and are stationed on the coast near the sea. They can be seen in a circle of ice around the mainland.
The above picture shows the population distribution of emperor penguins. Red dots are known gathering places, and yellow dots are newly discovered gathering places. Most of the emperor penguins' 40 homes are on the ice. They began to breed in winter, until the birds went into the water for food independently in summer, and the ice under their feet had not melted. Some emperor penguins have walked on the Bai Bing all their lives and never set foot on the black land.
In the Antarctic winter when the average temperature is -20℃ and the lowest temperature can reach -50℃, emperor penguins start the challenge mode to breed their offspring. In May, the Antarctic winter came, and emperor penguins gathered in the gathering place from north to south and began to lay eggs and hatch birds.
The eggs of emperor penguins are only 0.4 kg, which is very small, less than 1.5% of the weight of adult birds. In terms of the ratio of bird eggs to their bodies, emperor penguin eggs are the smallest eggs among birds. Fortunately, the bird egg has a good father who will take good care of it. After mother penguin laid her eggs, she gave them to father penguin. Mom went back to the sea to look for food, and the responsibility for incubating eggs was entirely borne by dad.
When emperor penguins don't build nests, dad puts the eggs on the soles of his feet, and a special layer of skin on his abdomen sticks to the eggs and hatches them with body temperature. On the extremely dark Antarctic ice sheet for 24 hours, the highest wind speed reaches 200 km/h, and the penguin father hatches his bird in the most desolate, cold, windy and dark place.
There are two advantages to not nesting and hatching bird eggs. One is that adult birds and eggs will never separate for a moment, and the other is that father penguin can move freely and absorb collective heat. On cold nights, penguins huddle together to resist the cold. After the penguins on the outermost layer of the wind freeze, they will move to the inner layer and change partners to take over.
Penguin dad doesn't eat or drink when incubating eggs, consuming his own energy to spend the long winter. The incubation period is longer than you expected, with an average of 1 15 days. During the four-month fasting period, the penguin father lost 40% weight. If it were you, 70 kilograms of you would only weigh 42 kilograms now.
When the bird is about to hatch, mother penguin comes back to feed instead of father, and then father and mother take turns to catch fish and shrimp and feed the bird. If the bird hatches before the mother comes back, the father will secrete a milk mixed with protein and fat from the esophagus and feed it to the bird.
Under the care of parents, birds grow very fast. Birds that break their shells in spring shed their newborn fluff in summer and put on waterproof feathers, so they can go out to sea to hunt alone. At this time, the emperor penguin left the ice and returned to the ocean life.
White-browed penguin
White-browed penguins live in different places from emperor penguins. It lives a little farther north and is more dispersed.
The above picture shows the distribution of the gathering place of the white-browed penguins. They live in the Antarctic Peninsula in the west of the Antarctic continent and a circle of islands around the continent.
Contrary to emperor penguins breeding offspring in winter, white-browed penguins hatch eggs in summer. After the ice on the ground melted, the white-browed penguins landed on the Antarctic Peninsula, collected stones to build nests and lived in peace.
Their collective community is much smaller than that of emperor penguins, with fewer people and much quieter environment. Penguin lives in its own nest. If the nest next to it is too close, it will peck at its neighbors and the two sides will often fight. Therefore, there is a distance between their nests, but they can't touch each other from a distance. They have a sense of security with the group and a sense of peace of mind in an independent space.
Unlike emperor penguins, which keep one bird a year, white-browed penguins keep two birds. Parents take turns to hatch birds' eggs, and the weather is warm. The time for birds to break their shells is much shorter than that of emperor penguins, and they can hatch in more than a month. Then parents take turns to go fishing and feed their children. These two kinds of birds eat a lot, and adult birds have to dive 450 times a day to get enough food. Their rations are very rich, including squid, octopus, krill and 17 different kinds of small fish.
Emperor penguins and white-browed penguins live in the same sea area in Antarctica, eat the same fish and shrimp and lead the same life, but the impact of climate change on them is quite different.
Effects of Climate Warming on Penguins
The area most affected by global warming is Antarctica. In the past 50 years, the average temperature of the Antarctic Peninsula has increased by 5 ~ 6℃. The Antarctic ice sheet is gradually decreasing from north to south, and the gathering place of emperor penguins is also shrinking.
Emperor penguins have a large population, not an endangered species, but their numbers have been decreasing in the past 50 years. Under climate change, emperor penguins may migrate to new gathering places to find suitable environment, but their migration cannot offset the impact of climate warming. The speed of emperor penguins adapting to the environment is far less than that of climate warming. Woods hole oceanographic institution established a data model to predict the impact of climate change on the number of emperor penguins.
The above picture is the forecast made by the research institute, the left picture shows the current gathering place of emperor penguins, and the right picture shows the distribution map of the worst-case gathering place of emperor penguins in 2 100. If the temperature rises by 5℃ by the end of this century, the number of 250,000 emperor penguins will be reduced by more than 80%.
Climate warming is not good for emperor penguins, but not for white-browed penguins. In the past 30 years, the number of white-browed penguins on the Antarctic Peninsula has been increasing continuously, and new gathering places are also increasing.
In 20 13, the Cortland Institute of New Zealand conducted a field survey on the Antarctic Peninsula, and found that the number of other penguins in this area was decreasing, but the number of white-browed penguins was increasing.
The weather is getting warmer, the Antarctic ice sheet is gradually shrinking, and the territory of the white-browed penguins nesting on land is gradually expanding. They expand their territory in Antarctica from north to south. Compared with emperor penguins, white-browed penguins have three advantages, one is flexible group, the other is small size and easy to move, and the third is to raise more offspring.
White-browed penguins don't stubbornly stick to their homes. When the surrounding environment changes, such as garbage accumulation near their home, they will move away quickly and find a new home. Compared with emperor penguins, white-browed penguins are more dispersed and have fewer members. Small groups not only migrate quickly, but also have more suitable places to live than large groups. In addition, the white-browed penguin has another advantage that the emperor penguin can't compare with. It can keep two birds at a time. If both birds fail to hatch, the white-browed penguin will take the time to lay two more eggs and try to feed at least one offspring every year.
In 2004, the white-browed penguin was once included in the endangered species list. With the growth of population, it has been removed from the list and is not a dangerous race. At present, the number of white-browed penguins is about 387,000.
Climate warming is testing animals living in cold regions, especially Antarctic penguins. However, there are opportunities in the crisis. The most hardy emperor penguin is declining, but the not outstanding white-browed penguin is growing and developing.
Life is not a machine gear that follows the law. It is the most attractive charm of life to be constant and changeable. On the Antarctic continent, some life is beyond our imagination. They are more flexible and tenacious.
Natural Selection, survival of the fittest.