A group of scientists working in collaboration with a filmmaker have come up with a clever, and adorable, way to study notoriously shy Emperor penguins in Adélie Land, Antarctica by sending in a rover disguised as a chick that was so convincing penguins tried to make conversation with it.
As researchers explain in a study published in the journal Nature Methods, which was led by Yvon Le Maho of the University of Strasbourg in France, scientists have been unable to study these penguins up close without seriously stressing them out, altering their behavior or causing them to retreat.
As Discovery further explains, to reduce stress, wild animals are sometimes tagged with Passive Integrated Transponders or PIT-tags, which use Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) to monitor them like the microchips we use on pets, but these PIT-tags can only be read when they’re within 60 centimeters of an antenna.
That necessary proximity to read microchips creates a problem for researchers who want to monitor animals without disturbing them or artificially altering their results. Sending in rovers with equipment that can read the tags solves the problem, but not all of them were appreciated by the penguins.
Le Maho told the Associated Press, that the first version didn’t go over so well and scared the birds. Five tries later, working in collaboration with Bristol-based John Downer Productions, they nailed it with a model that looks like a tiny penguin chick, complete with right combination of fur and markings down to face color and a little black beak. The disguised rover allowed them to stay more than 650 feet away from the penguins.
Not only did the penguins not move away from the little spy, but they interacted with it and sang to it with “a very special song like a trumpet,” Le Maho said, adding that, “They were very disappointed when there was no answer. Next time we will have a rover playing songs.”
Researchers first used a less-cute version to study king penguins and found that their stress reactions were four times lower compared to when they were approached by humans after looking at their heart rate and behavior, although the penguins did attack the rover when it passed by too closely.
They hope in the future methods like this can be used to study animals in their natural habitats without disrupting them, scaring them or changing their behavior.
Read more at ENN affiliate, Care2.
Image credit: Le Maho, et al. Nature Methods via Care2.