An enormous colony of more than 1.5 million Adelie penguins was discovered in the Antarctic. The massive colonies of penguins were found in the Danger Islands which lie in the Weddell Sea. The area is difficult to reach and is rarely visited. Scientists studying satellite images found what appeared to be never before seen nesting pairs of penguins, 751,527 pairs to be exact.
In the second “catastrophic” breeding season for Adelie penguins in five years, conservationists are calling for drastic measures to save the species. All but two Adelie penguin chicks have starved to death in the 2017 breeding season. The last high mortality breeding season occurred in 2015 when every single chick died. Scientists say the record amount of sea ice meant adults needed to travel farther for food as well as increased competition for a primary food source of krill from commercial fishing vessels.
In a paper published in Frontiers in Ecology last month, scientists have shown that several species of penguins regularly feed on jellyfish. This find is surprising as it was traditionally thought that penguins subsist primarily on nutrient dense foods like fish. Jellyfish are over 90 percent water and mean that the penguins expend a lot of energy for not a lot of caloric payback for this food source.