Penguins on wheels

Penguins, like many animals, do not react well when a strange person, or machine, comes by to examine them – even if that said person is a highly decorated scientist. And it gets even harder when a bird, previously captured to be fitted with research equipment, is sought out again to further a study.

So you can imagine that the emperor penguins of Adelie Land in Antarctica were not amused to see Dr Yvon Le Maho of the University of Strasbourg and his team returning to a colony to read the heart rates of several of the flightless birds.

In an effort to try to make the penguins feel more relaxed, Dr Le Maho came up with the idea of using a robot on wheels to get close enough to the group to continue the study. Sending in this stripped down machine had the following result:
Suffice to say, the penguins didn't like it. So, the scientists tried another approach, mounting a fluffy fake penguin on top of the wheeled robot to get as close as possible to the penguins – they needed to get within at least 60cm of the colony to get the necessary data.

And here's what happened: The king penguins, which had at first pecked at the bare, wheeled machine, calmed down, their heart rates rapidly returning to normal with the help of the cuddly rover. Explanation: The fluffy fake was accepted as part of the colony, and did not cause the same disruption as the humans or the undisguised robot, according to the study.