Hope comes in the strangest packages. Take penguin poop for instance (how many times does a writer get to use that last sentence?):

Penguin guano stains, visible from space, have helped British scientists locate emperor penguin breeding colonies in Antarctica. Knowing their location provides a baseline for monitoring their response to environmental change.

In a new study, published this week in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography, scientists from British Antarctic Survey describe how they used satellite images to survey the sea-ice around 90% of Antarctica’s coast to search for emperor penguin colonies. The survey identified a total of 38. Ten of those were new. Of the previously known colonies six had re-located and six were not found.

Because emperor penguins breed on sea-ice during the Antarctic winter little is known about their colonies. Reddish brown patches of guano on the ice, visible in satellite images, provide a reliable indication of their location.

BAS Mapping expert Peter Fretwell explains, “We can’t see actual penguins on the satellite maps because the resolution isn’t good enough. But during the breeding season the birds stay at a colony for eight months. The ice gets pretty dirty and it’s the guano stains that we can see.”

Photo: National Geographic

Source: Happy News (great site!)