ANTARCTICA... THE COLDEST PLACE ON EARTH...
DRIER THAN THE GOBI DESERT, THOUGH COVERED YEAR ROUND WITH MILE DEEP ICE.
HIGH UP ON THE POLAR PLATEAU, CONDITIONS ARE SO EXTREME THAT ONLY MICROBES LIVE HERE, ALONG WITH HUMANS WITH OUR TECHNOLOGY AND SUPPORT SYSTEMS.
TO SURVIVE IN ANTARCTICA, WE NEED TO BRING OUR SHELTER WITH US...
...MAKE SURE WE HAVE SUPPLIES OF ENERGY-RICH FOODS
...AND LAYERS OF HEAVY CLOTHING FOR PROTECTION AGAINST THE COLD.
TO GET AROUND WE RELY ON PLANES ...AND SNOWMOBILES ...AND CATERPILLAR TRUCKS.
BUT ON THIS CONTINENT, OUR SPECIES IS A JOHNNY- ...AND JANE- ...COME-LATELY.
THE TRUE EXPERTS IN LIVING ON THE ICE ARE THE PENGUINS, WHO MAKE THEIR HOMES IN THE SOUTHERN OCEAN AND ON THE CONTINENT'S SHORES AND NEARBY ISLANDS.
SEEING HOW THE PENGUINS SURVIVE AND RAISE THEIR YOUNG SHOWS US HOW THESE FASCINATING CREATURES HAVE ADAPTED TO THE MOST CHALLENGING ENVIRONMENT ON EARTH...
AND HOW THEIR SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON BOTH COOPERATION, AS WELL AS COMPETITION.
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PENGUIN FACTS
PARENTING BEHAVIORS
PHYSICAL ADAPTATIONS
IN THIS VIDEO WE'LL MEET PENGUINS CLOSE-UP
...AND SEE HOW BOTH PARENTING BEHAVIORS ...AND PHYSICAL ADAPTATION
...HAVE ALLOWED THEM TO "MAKE IT" IN ANTARCTICA.
PENGUINS ARE BIRDS... BUT TODAY THEIR STUBBY FLIPPERS HELP THEM "FLY" THROUGH ICY WATERS.
THEY STILL HAVE FEATHERS, PACKED AS DENSELY AS 70 PER SQUARE INCH.
TOGETHER WITH LAYERS OF BLUBBER AND FAT, THE FEATHERS PROTECT THEM FROM ICY WINDS AND FREEZING WATER.
ON LAND, THEY WADDLE... BUT THEN THEY TAKE TO THE WATER TO FEED ON KRILL AND SMALL FISH... AND SWIM WITH POWERFUL EFFICIENCY.
EMPEROR PENGUINS CAN GROW ONE METER TALL, ABOUT 36 INCHES-THE SIZE OF A HUMAN TODDLER-AND DIVE NEARLY 300 METERS DEEP IN SEARCH OF FOOD.
FULLY GROWN, EMPERORS MAY WEIGH AS MUCH AS 30 KILOGRAMS, 66 POUNDS.
PENGUINS USUALLY STAND TO CROSS THE ICE... BUT IF THEY'RE SCARED OR IN A HURRY, THEY MAY DROP DOWN AND TOBOGGAN... PUSHING THEMSELVES ALONG WITH FEET AND FLIPPERS.
TRAVELING LIKE THIS THEY CAN OUTPACE A HUMAN!
THERE ARE 18 DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PENGUINS. ALL HAVE BLACK AND WHITE FEATHERS, BUT EACH SPECIES CAN BE DISTINGUISHED BY CHARACTERISTIC MARKINGS.
ON HUGO ISLAND, EN ROUTE TO PALMER STATION, YOU ENCOUNTER "CHINSTRAP" PENGUINS-NAMED FOR THAT DISTINCTIVE BLACK BAND RUNNING DOWN AROUND THEIR HEADS.
CLOSE BY ARE GENTOOS, WITH THEIR RED AND ORANGE BEAKS.
THE MOST NUMEROUS PENGUIN SPECIES IN ANTARCTICA IS THE ADELIE.
EVERY YEAR MANY MILLIONS OF THEM LIVE ON OR AROUND THE CONTINENT.
SMALLER THAN THE EMPEROR AT 70 CENTIMETERS, OR 28 INCHES, ADELIES WEIGH ABOUT 12 POUNDS.
HERE AT CAPE ROYDS, 2 HOURS FROM McMURDO STATION, IS THE HUT USED BY ERNEST SHACKLETON'S 1908 EXPEDITION.
INSIDE YOU SEE LONG-ABANDONED HUMAN NECESSITIES... SIMPLE BEDS ...COOKING UTENSILS... FOOD... BOOTS, ALL PERFECTLY PRESERVED FOR NEARLY A CENTURY IN THE COLD, DRY AIR.
JUST OUTSIDE THIS MEMORIAL TO HEROIC EXPLORERS OF THE PAST IS ONE OF THE LARGEST ADELIE COLONIES ON THE CONTINENT.
EACH ANTARCTIC SPRING, ADELIES RETURN FROM THE OFF-SHORE PACK ICE FOR THE NEW BREEDING SEASON.
THE MALES ARRIVE FIRST, TO BUILD A NEST.
THEY USE THE SIMPLEST OF MATERIALS-SMALL STONES AND PEBBLES-AND IN THE POWDERY LATE SPRING SNOW-FALL, EVERY SCRAP OF BUILDING MATERIAL IS PRECIOUS!
LATER IN THE SEASON, SOME SNOW HAS MELTED, BUT THE PATIENT SEARCH FOR THAT PERFECT STONE CONTINUES!
ACROSS THE CONTINENT, AT PALMER STATION, CAROL VLECK HAS RETURNED YEAR AFTER YEAR TO BETTER UNDERSTAND HOW ADELIES SURVIVE AND BREED.
EVERY DAY WHEN THE WEATHER'S FINE AND THE WATER'S SAFE FOR THE ZODIAC INFLATABLES, SHE AND HER SMALL RESEARCH TEAM TRAVEL OFF TO TORGERSON ISLAND...
LIKE ALL RESEARCHERS IN THE ANTARCTIC, THEY LEARN TO OBSERVE THE CREATURES THEY'RE STUDYING WITHOUT DISTRESSING THEM...
THEY WEIGH AND MEASURE THE BIRDS, TRYING TO FIND SOME CORRELATION BETWEEN THE SIZE AND WEIGHT OF PENGUIN PARENTS AND THE SURVIVAL RATES OF THEIR CHICKS.
name title: CAROL VLECK
Each bird that we work with has a band on its flipper so we can read the band with binoculars or even our bare eyes, and we know them as individuals. But definitely they have personalities too. There are some birds that will come right out of the colony either because they're curious or because they want to attack you. There are some birds that will want to follow you around like a little puppy. Definitely there's some very friendly, curious birds. When you're holding them, you can tell they're calm and they just sit there in your lap. Others just continually try to get away, or bite you or attack you. Very definite personality differences.
BY STUDYING THE ADELIES YEAR AFTER YEAR, CAROL AND HER TEAM CAN NOW PROVIDE A DETAILED PICTURE OF THE LIFE CYCLE OF THESE ENGAGING CREATURES.
VLECK
They will build their little nest of rocks, steal rocks from the neighbors and everybody else. That rock nest is really important to get the eggs up out of the drainage when the snow melts. So the eggs are laid... The female then, because she had to put that energy in the leg is the first one to go back and begin to feed. And then the male has to take the first bout of incubation.
So when the female comes back, then the male can finally go out and have his first meal in many, many weeks. After that, they trade off every three to five days. Chicks hatch; they have to stay with the chicks to protect them from the skuas. And then when the chicks are about ten days to two weeks old, finally both parents can begin to leave them for longer periods of time. And they go into these little creches, where the chicks are able to keep themselves warm and protected from the skuas.
RECENTLY CAROL'S PROJECT HAS BEEN CAREFULLY TAKING BLOOD SAMPLES, JUST LIKE HUMAN DOCTORS DURING AN ANNUAL CHECK-UP.
CAROL VLECK
Blood is the only substance that we sample from these birds because it does give you a really good picture of the health and general state of the bird, just like the blood you give at the doctor's office can tell many things about your health. We can also measure all kinds of things in the blood: like how much oxygen it's able to carry, or how well that bird is prepared to do a lot of strenuous exercise, we can tell whether the birds has an infection or not based on the ratio of white blood cells...
THE RESEARCHERS HAVE NOTICED THERE ARE DISTINCT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PENGUINS IN HOW THEY RESPOND TO INTRUDERS WHO GET TOO NEAR THEIR NESTS.
THEY WANT TO KNOW IF MORE AGGRESSIVE PARENTS HAVE MORE SUCCESSFUL CHICKS, AND WHETHER THERE ARE DIFFERENT LEVELS OF HORMONES IN AGGRESSIVE AND IN CALMER BIRDS.
THIS YEAR THEY'VE DEVELOPED A UNIQUE STUDY TOOL-A DUMMY PENGUIN THAT CAN TRIGGER VIOLENT BEHAVIOR ANY TIME!
VLECK
We decided this year, rather than sit there for hours waiting for something exciting to happen, we'd try to precipitate that by introducing this challenger penguin into their territory. Then we could measure the rate at which they attack, either with their beak or with their flippers. And go back and correlate that with the levels of aggressive hormones in those individual birds.
OVER TIME, VLECK AND HER COLLEAGUES HOPE TO FIND A CONNECTION BETWEEN THE AMOUNT OF SEA-ICE, HOW MUCH KRILL THE ADELIES CAN FIND, AND HOW MANY CHICKS SURVIVE.
THEY ALREADY KNOW THAT DESPITE THE PENGUINS' MARVELOUS ADAPTATIONS TO THEIR ENVIRONMENT, LIFE IN ANTARCTICA IS A CONTINUAL STRUGGLE.
VLECK
Estimates are that it's a pretty hard first year for these little guys. I've heard it said that only 10% of them will survive, I'm not even sure if it's that high in some years.
ON THE ICE AND IN THE OCEAN, THERE'S ALWAYS A THREAT FROM LEOPARD SEALS, THEIR MAIN PREDATOR.
THIS ADELIE DID NOT ESCAPE... THOUGH EACH YEAR MANY OTHERS MAKE IT BACK TO BECOME PARENTS TO A NEW GENERATION OF CHICKS.
ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CONTINENT, OUT ON THE SEA-ICE OFF CAPE ROYDS AND ITS LARGE ADELIE COLONY, BIOLOGIST GERRY KOOYMAN AND HIS TEAM HAVE CREATED A MOST UNUSUAL RESEARCH LABORATORY, DEDICATED TO STUDYING EMPEROR PENGUINS.
THEY NICKNAMED IT... "RANCHO PENGUINO".
NAME TITLE: GERALD KOOYMAN
This is probably the most ideal condition or circumstance for studying a wild marine vertebrate, anywhere in the world. In fact, there's probably no other place in Antarctica where it could be set up so easily as here because we've got this sea ice sheet, that the birds can dive in, but they have to stay in the area because there aren't any other holes that they can reach easily. In doing that, they're feeding normally here, they're gaining something like 1 to 3 kilos a day on food that they're obtaining on their own. And so we want to understand how they forage on their own and in the wild.
WHEN THE EMPERORS RETURN, GERRY'S ASSISTANTS GENTLY GUIDE EACH PENGUIN OVER A SCALE SO THEY CAN MEASURE HOW MUCH FISH THEY'VE EATEN DURING THEIR DIVE.
KOOYMAN HAS MADE MANY VISITS TO ANTARCTICA, BUT THIS IS THE FIRST TIME HE'S ALSO BROUGHT ALONG SONS CARSTEN AND TORY AS RESEARCH ASSISTANTS.
THE PENGUINS SOON GET USED TO THE SIMPLE FENCES AND BEING CLOSE TO HUMANS.
KOOYMAN:
It's pretty foreign when you think of what we're doing, these animals have never eaten anything above water before.
AND THE RESEARCHERS SOON REALIZE THAT EACH PENGUIN HAS A UNIQUE PERSONALITY.
name title: CARSTEN KOOYMAN
A couple of them we've named after sort of the tough ones, we've got a "Rambo" and a "Terminator" that are some of the stronger more feisty penguins. Then we have one named "Puck", for Shakespeare's Puck. Then we've got "Pacer," and he walks the corral and is constantly trying to find an exit.
TORY KOOYMAN:
And then of course we have #1 here, who we call Falstaff, who is after John Falstaff, which is from Shakespeare as well, because he always seems he's ready for a fight, but then when it comes down to it, he's not all that tough after all.
BEING SO CLOSE TO THESE EMPERORS OF THE ICE ALLOWS KOOYMAN TO SHOW US SOME OF THEIR MOST IMPORTANT PHYSICAL ADAPTATIONS TO THEIR ENVIRONMENT.
GERRY KOOYMAN:
In fact they're operating under very low light conditions, they're diving under ice, and they're going to great depths, but they're still doing it visually. You don't get that impression when you look at them. You see a small eye, that's just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. If you were to see the whole eye, those two eyes take up as much of the volume of the skull as the brain, extremely large. So they look like your cartoon Martian, if you were to see him in cross-section, there would be these two hug orbs sitting on either side.
ON LAND, THE KOOYMANS HAVE LEARNED TO BE VERY CAREFUL AROUND THE EMPERORS' POWERFUL FLIPPERS.
UNDERWATER, IT'S THESE WINGS AND THE MUSCLES WHICH POWER THEM WHICH LET THE EMPERORS TAKE FLIGHT.
KOOYMAN:
Their chest, breast muscle, is about 25% of their total body weight. It's a massive muscle for the size of the animal really. And the wings, function more as foils versus paddles. We tend to think their paddles, but they actually have a curvature to them so they get lift off of the wings rather than them pushing water behind them. And in that way, they're extremely effective. I don't think any marine mammal has the acceleration and turning capabilities that penguins have. And I think Emperors are premiere in that regard.
WITH THEIR DISTINCTIVE BLACK AND WHITE COLORATION, PENGUINS HAVE BECOME THE BEST-KNOWN SYMBOL OF ANTARCTICA, BUT THERE'S A VERY PRACTICAL EXPLANATION-ROOTED IN BIOLOGICAL ADAPTATION TO THE ENVIRONMENT-FOR THEIR WHITE BELLIES AND BLACK BACKS.
KOOYMAN:
The idea is in general sense is that if you were a predator looking up for prey, such as a penguin, that they're white belly will blend in with the surface of the water. Where as if you're looking down on them, their dark back will blend in with the depths, and so it's hard to see them. Looking down on them, they disappear pretty fast.
OVER MILLENNIA, EMPERORS HAVE EVOLVED A WAY OF LIFE THAT ALLOWS THEM TO REMAIN ON THE CONTINENT, INCUBATING THEIR LARGE EGGS RIGHT THROUGH THE LONG, COLD WINTER.
UNLIKE ADELIES, THEY BUILD NO NESTS. INSTEAD, ALL WINTER LONG, MALE EMPERORS WARM AND GUARD THE LONE EGG THE FEMALE LEAVES BEHIND IN A SPECIAL POUCH OF SKIN BETWEEN THEIR LEGS.
FLOCKING TOGETHER, THEY GAIN AS MUCH AS 4 CRUCIAL DEGREES FROM THE BODY HEAT OF THEIR COMPANIONS.
KOOYMAN:
It really is a remarkable bird, there are 8,600 species of birds, and this is the only species that really is a truly Antarctic species. It stays here throughout the year, all the other move into the Southern Ocean, or further north.
AT FIRST WE MAY THINK OF PENGUINS AS CUTE PERFORMERS, PUTTING ON A SHOW TO ENTERTAIN THEIR HUMAN VISITORS.
BUT IF YOU SPEND A LITTLE TIME WITH THEM YOU REALIZE THAT EVERYTHING ABOUT THEM...
FROM THEIR COLORATION ...TO THE TEXTURE AND WATER RESISTANCE OF THEIR FEATHERS...
FROM HOW THEY FORM SMALL FAMILY GROUPS...
...OR GATHER IN COMMUNITIES OF THOUSANDS OF BIRDS
...IS A SUCCESSFUL ADAPTATION TO THE EXTREME CONDITIONS IN WHICH THEY LIVE.
THEIR SURVIVAL IS PROOF OF THE POWER OF EVOLUTION THROUGH NATURAL SELECTION TO SHAPE CREATURES TO THEIR ENVIRONMENT.
HERE, IN THE ANTARCTIC, IT'S HUMANS WHO WILL ALWAYS BE THE VISITORS... AND PENGUINS WHO ARE "AT HOME ON THE ICE."
