It\u2019s one of the most pressing questions facing humanity: What color is Antarctic penguin poo? An intrepid group of researchers from England\u2019s University of Cambridge has donned their thermal undies and sacrificed three months of their lives in order to answer this question for us.<\/p>\n
Peter Fretwell and three other researchers recently flew to Signy Island, Antarctica. This peaceful little place is four miles long, three miles wide and has a population of five. It\u2019s also home to 74,300 penguins. The temperature on Signy Island can hit -47\u00b0F \u2014 but that\u2019s fairly mild for the Antarctic, so don\u2019t let that deter you from booking your next vacation there.<\/p>\n
Fretwell and his friends spent three months\u2014including Christmas and New Years\u2014on Signy, stalking the island\u2019s 74,300 penguins and waiting for them to poop (as you can imagine, they didn\u2019t have to wait long). Once pooping commenced, Fretwell\u2019s team tiptoed behind the penguins, taking photos and collecting the prettiest samples. They then analyzed the poop\u2014using stunningly expensive equipment\u2014to determine its exact color<\/em>.<\/p>\n Their conclusion? Penguin poop is white\u2014except when it\u2019s pink. Turns out penguins sometimes gorge on krill\u2014tiny crustaceans that turn everything they touch an impressive shade of pink (krill, it seems, are the beets of the Antarctic).<\/p>\n So, what can we learn from Peter Fretwell and his colleagues? First of all, if you\u2019re antisocial, love penguins, and aren\u2019t afraid of hypothermia, Signy Island is a great place to spend Christmas. Secondly, don\u2019t ever<\/em> drink while sitting in a planning meeting with Fretwell\u2014I\u2019ve heard rumors his next project could be collecting killer whale poop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s one of the most pressing questions facing humanity: What color is Antarctic penguin poo? An intrepid group of researchers from England\u2019s University of Cambridge has donned their thermal undies and sacrificed three months of their lives in order to answer this question for us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funny-bits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":579,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions\/579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}