In the Antarctic, there are new satellite images show that almost 20 percent more colonies of Emperor penguins than previously thought. Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have made in the analysis of data from the space mission Sentinel-2, eleven new colonies are identified, shared with the European space Agency Esa on Wednesday. Three of them had previously identified, but not confirmed can be.
the animals themselves are too small to appear on satellite imagery, however, the colonies could be identified on the basis of their also known as “Guano” known Kots, it said. This leave huge spots on the ice. The results of the research were published in the journal “Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation”.
The studies of the flightless marine birds is not according to Esa without a satellite is extremely difficult, because the Emperor penguins only live in a very remote and inaccessible part of the earth, but the temperatures to minus 50 degrees Celsius.
thanks to the new data, experts are now of 61 Emperor penguin colonies throughout the Antarctic continent. “This is an exciting discovery,” said Peter Fretwell, lead author and a geographer at BAS. “And although this is a good message, are the colonies of small and increase the total population numbers only five to ten percent to a little more than half a Million penguins, or about 265.500 to 278.500 breeding pairs.”
