The harsh life of young penguins

The emperor's penguins came to live miserably in terms of being bullied and tortured. A detailed study has just revealed that.

Because of the penguins, the mature emperor was very aggressive, the young were forced to gather together in groups to survive. Research, published in the journal Animal Behavior, found that those who unfortunately stood on the edge of this cramped crowd, were so vulnerable to bullying or eating meat that they never really slept.

" The penguins sleep by alternating between the closed eyes are short opening times, like " peeking "in your alert sleep, " explains Michel Gauthier-Clerc, an author of the study. " Although sleepy like that, they can still cover the surrounding environment ."

Gauthier-Clerc, at the Tour du Valat Biological Station in Arles, France and colleagues studied more than 16,000 Emperor penguins Aptenodytes patagonicus , living on Possession Island, Antarctica. Young birds abandoned by one or both parents often beat or kicked by other adult penguins. They often run towards other young animals until they form a group of them.

The baby tries to scramble for a position in the center of that special group. The small, small horns are pushed to the edge of the ring, where they are often attacked and eaten by brown gulls and seagulls kelp. While the lucky ones are in the center of a warm and safe sleep, the marginalized ones are only allowed to rest for a while in very alert sleep cycles.

Gauthier-Clerc explains sleep is an essential energy-saving process for all vertebrates, including humans. Although it was better to take a nap for a while, the raped ones in the outer ring were still worse off.

" We think that the chicks at the edge of the ring save less energy because of the cold and the lack of sleep. They are not covered by cold winds, they are more vulnerable to predators and sleepers ." He also pointed out that the chicks must live like that, without food, during the winter, until their parents return at the end of the season carrying food.

T.An ( according to Discovery )