Disguised Rover Used To Help Study Penguins

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/47982

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.

FULL story and photo at link.

[Archae]

1. I saw it on the news.

It did a "group hug" for warmth with a bunch of chicks, just adorable.

[NV Whino]

2. I can hardly wait until someone adopts it

And sits on it.