Tech News Update

When penguins get a call of nature, they’re generally not too fussy where they go.And as they may stay in the same area for up to eight months at a time, the ice under their feet can lose its pure white lustre by the time they move on.Luckily, scientists have a reason to be excited over the excrement, using the reddish-brown areas of guano (sea bird poo) to plot the movements of emperor penguin breeding colonies.Emperor penguins, among the largest in the world, are hard to track during Antarctica’s harsh winters – but now scientists can now track by satelliteThe ‘reddish-brown’ spot helped to identify the colony of penguinsExperts used satellite images to survey sea ice around 90per cent of Antarctica’s coast, and were able to identify a total of 38 colonies, including 10 that were new, by looking for the tell-tale patches.Of the previously known colonies, six had re-located and six were not found.Experts need to track the movements of emperor penguins to monitor their response to climate change.Mapping expert Peter Fretwell, from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), said: ‘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.