Add your Article
- Computers
- New eyes to scan the skies
- Toxic Dirt + Avian Flu = Science Fair Success
- Music of the Future
- Dinosaurs and Fossils
- Meet the new dinos
- Ancient Critter Caught Shedding Its Skin
- Fingerprinting Fossils
- E Learning Jamaica
- E Learning in Jamaica WIN PRIZES and try our Fun Animated Games
- 2014 GSAT Results for Jamaican Kids
- Results of GSAT are in schools this week
- Environment
- A Vulture's Hidden Enemy
- Sea Otters, Kelp, and Killer Whales
- Forests as a Tsunami Shield
- Finding the Past
- Prehistoric Trips to the Dentist
- If Only Bones Could Speak
- Little People Cause Big Surprise
- GSAT Exam Preparation Jamaica
- GSAT Exam Preparation
- March 21-22, 2013: Over 43,000 students will take the GSAT Exam
- Preparing for the GSAT Exam
- GSAT Exams Jamaica Scholarships
- GSAT Scholarship
- 42,000 students will sit for the GSAT Exam in two weeks
- Access denied - Disabled boy aces GSAT
- GSAT Mathematics
- Losing with Heads or Tails
- E Learning in Jamaica WIN PRIZES and try our Fun Animated Games
- Play for Science
- Parents
- Raise a Lifelong Reader by Reading Aloud
- Expert report highlights the importance to parents of reading to children!
- What Not to Say to Emerging Readers
Odor-Chasing Penguins
Published: 07/05/2010
The smell of rotten eggs probably makes you cringe. But, for penguins, this smell might mean there's a meal nearby. New research shows that penguins are attracted to this rotten-egg smell and probably use it when foraging for food in the ocean. The study is one of the first to show that penguins have a functioning sense of smell. The rotten-egg smell is caused by a gas known as dimethyl sulfide. Scientists already knew that some seabirds, such as albatrosses and petrels, use this smell to locate areas where tiny sea creatures called phytoplankton live. Phytoplankton produce the chemical, fish eat the phytoplankton, and the birds, in turn, swoop down to eat the fish. Even though penguins don't fly, they do swim along the surface of the water and dive to catch fish. So biologist Gregory Cunningham of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania wondered if penguins might use the same trick. "Seabirds like petrels and penguins have to solve the same problems, so it seemed likely that they would utilize the same techniques for solving those problems," Cunningham says. To test this, Cunningham built a Y-shaped structure. One branch contained the smell, while the other branch was odorless. A penguin sanctuary in Cape Town, South Africa provided the participants: African penguins recovering from being caught in oil spills. Cunningham plopped the penguins down in front of the structure one by one and watched in which direction they went. The penguins made a beeline for the smell. Next, Cunningham visited a colony of wild African penguins living on Robben Island, located off the coast of Cape Town. "Penguins have this really cool system where they build nests anywhere they can," Cunningham says. "All the nests have walkways down to the beach that form penguin highways." Cunningham doused various places along these penguin highways with the rotten-egg smell and observed the birds' behavior as they passed by. He predicted that the penguins would be attracted to these spots in the morning when they were hungry. Actually, the opposite happened. The penguins ignored the smell in the morning, but stopped to check it out on their way back to their nests in the evening. Cunningham says he doesn't know why the birds disregarded the smell at sunrise. But, he hopes that future research will uncover the answer, as well as shed more light on how penguins use smell in other aspects of their lives.—M. Price
Odor-Chasing Penguins
