The secret of penguins

Having chosen to settle in the coldest place on Earth, penguins must have a specific 'strategy' to defeat the terrible cold, especially when the Antarctic winter lasts for 6 months. Here, a large gathering is a matter of life and death.

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The members of the group always stand together so closely that moving in this crowded crowd is almost impossible. However, in fact, penguins are forced to perform selective movements. The members in the outer circle will freeze to death if they do not constantly move into the inside of the flock. The problem is how the continuous and selective group restructuring takes place? And how can millions of members walk away without stepping on each other? The answer: penguin is really an expert in physical practice.

Photo : Robyn Mundy.

The analysis shows that penguins - particularly the emperor penguins - move through the flock like the sound waves pass through the liquid environment, but at a much slower rate. " Every 30 to 60 seconds, all the members take small steps (5 - 10 cm) like a ripple happening all over the place ," Daniel Zitterbart, a physicist from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany), described. In the PLoS ONE magazine, with such a precise and synchronized movement, no member of the group was knocked out, let alone to be dead. Although they also tend to move in a wave-like penguin style, waves of human masses do not happen at the same time, but can always fall into disarray and disorder. Danger for some unfortunate individuals.