Description
Condition: BRAND NEW
ISBN: 9780226824383
Year: 2024
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Description:
With stunning photographs from the ice edge, this firsthand account of a researcher’s time in Antarctica and of the perilous journeys of the world’s largest penguin species: the iconic emperor. Nearly all emperor penguin colonies are extremely remote; of the sixty-six known, fewer than thirty have been visited by humans, and even fewer have been the subject of successful research programs. One of the largest known emperor penguin colonies is found on a narrow band of sea ice attached to the Antarctic continent. In Journeys with Emperors, Gerald L. Kooyman and Jim Mastro take us to this far-flung colony in the Ross Sea, revealing how scientists gained access to it, and what they learned while living among the penguins as they raised their chicks.
The Ross Sea colony is close to the ice edge, which spares the penguins the long, energy-draining march for which other colonies are well-known. But life at this colony is not without movement. The proximity of the ice edge to the birds allowed researchers to observe the penguins as they came and went on their foraging journeys, including their interactions with leopard seals and killer whales. What the scientists witnessed revealed important aspects of emperor penguin behavior and physiology. For instance, they discovered that in the course of hunting for food, some of the penguins dive to depths of greater than five hundred meters (a third of a mile, deeper than any other diving bird). And crucially: most of the emperor’s life is actually spent at sea, with fledged chicks and adults making separate, perilous journeys across icy water—to mature or to feed b
ISBN: 9780226824383
Year: 2024
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Description:
With stunning photographs from the ice edge, this firsthand account of a researcher’s time in Antarctica and of the perilous journeys of the world’s largest penguin species: the iconic emperor. Nearly all emperor penguin colonies are extremely remote; of the sixty-six known, fewer than thirty have been visited by humans, and even fewer have been the subject of successful research programs. One of the largest known emperor penguin colonies is found on a narrow band of sea ice attached to the Antarctic continent. In Journeys with Emperors, Gerald L. Kooyman and Jim Mastro take us to this far-flung colony in the Ross Sea, revealing how scientists gained access to it, and what they learned while living among the penguins as they raised their chicks.
The Ross Sea colony is close to the ice edge, which spares the penguins the long, energy-draining march for which other colonies are well-known. But life at this colony is not without movement. The proximity of the ice edge to the birds allowed researchers to observe the penguins as they came and went on their foraging journeys, including their interactions with leopard seals and killer whales. What the scientists witnessed revealed important aspects of emperor penguin behavior and physiology. For instance, they discovered that in the course of hunting for food, some of the penguins dive to depths of greater than five hundred meters (a third of a mile, deeper than any other diving bird). And crucially: most of the emperor’s life is actually spent at sea, with fledged chicks and adults making separate, perilous journeys across icy water—to mature or to feed b