Thursday 17 July 2014

Penguins' Flying Ability Lost As they Became Better Swimmers


Human invested hundreds of years plotting to fly, so it may be difficult to envision that any animal would leave this skill, but penguins waddle among us. Another study aides affirm that these seabirds exchanged flight to get better swimmers. 

Penguins have a reiteration of physical peculiarities that make them vitality proficient  underwater. Case in point, their abbreviated wingspans reduce drag; their thick wing bones make them less light; and their massive bodies help them stay protected and plunge deeper. Dissimilar to other amphibian fledglings that oar submerged with their webbed feet, penguins beat their wings to push themselves far beneath the surface. Head penguins can even go to profundities more noteworthy than 1,500 feet (450 meters), enduring 20 minutes on a solitary breath. 

Anyhow stubby wings and additional pounds don't make it simple to lift off into the air. Scientists accept that sooner or later in penguin advancement, these jumping improvements made flying so immoderate that it stopped to be a sensible alternative preposterous, rendering them flightless. [happy Feet: A Gallery of Pudgy Penguins] 

To take in more about the vitality costs that in the long run grounded flighted penguin progenitors, scientists looked to penguin like seabirds in the Northern Hemisphere that still utilize their wings to swoop and to fly. The group examined thick-charged murres in the Canadian Arctic, equipping them with area trackers and measuring their vitality use with infusions of tracer isotopes, which are varieties of a component with distinctive amounts of neutrons. 

They found that the twofold life takes its toll. The murre's flight expense was much higher than anticipated, the analysts said. Indeed, the vitality required for flight was higher than the flight expense of any fledgling, surpassing the past record-holder, the bar-headed goose, which makes a requesting relocation over the Himalayas. 

Contrasted and fowls that impel themselves with their feet to swim, in the same way as pelagic cormorants, the murres utilized less vitality when jumping. The murres, on the other hand, still had higher vitality costs for swimming than penguins do, the analysts said. 

The study moves down the bio mechanical theory that fowls can't be exceedingly proficient at both swimming and plunging, and it demonstrates that murres are strolling on a meager evolutionary line between the two capabilities. Study scientist Robert Ricklefs, an ornithologist at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, advised Nature that murres would need to "lessen their wings or develop bigger to enhance their plunging, and both would make flying inconceivable." 

Friday 15 February 2013

African Penguin

African Penguins grow to 68–70 cm (26.7–27.5 in) tall and weigh between 2 and 5 kg (4.4 and 11 lb)[citation needed]. They have a black stripe and black spots on the chest, the pattern of spots being unique for every penguin, like human fingerprints. They have pink glands above their eyes, which are used for thermoregulation.

The hotter the penguin gets, the more blood is sent to these glands so it may be cooled by the surrounding air, thus making the glands more pink.This species exhibits slight sexual dimorphism: the males are larger than the females and have larger beaks. The beak is more pointed than that of the Humboldt. Their distinctive black and white colouring is a vital form of camouflage called countershading– white for underwater predators looking upwards and black for predators looking down onto the dark water.

African penguins look similar and are thought to be related to the Humboldt, Magellanic, and Galapagos penguins.African penguins have a very recognizable appearance with a thick band of black that is in the shape of an upside-down horseshoe. They have black feet and unique black spots that vary in size and shape  per penguin. Magellanic Penguins share a similar characteristic that often confuses the two, the similarity is a double bar on the throat and chest. These penguins have the nickname of "Jackass penguin" which comes from the loud noises they make. They stand about 27 inches (60 cm tall) and weigh from 7 to 11 lbs. (2.5 to 5 kg).

Thursday 9 August 2012

It's all Indefatigathingummy's fault

Following on from this, I ought to give a jolly wave to, if not toss vigorously the Marching Bands in the direction of, Indefatigathingummy.

The least I can do in recompense is to take up his meme:
I am the law. At least as regards the Splitting of Infinitives.
I want for remarkably little
I wish those tosspot Parking Attendants that lurk around the Music School on Saturday morning to nail people dropping off and picking up their kids would just sod off: this is pure gouging and has nothing to do with traffic flow: it's a f*cking cul-de-sac.
I hate those tosspot Parking Attendants that lurk around the Music School on Saturday morning to nail people dropping off and picking up their kids
I love my wife, my children and logic problems.
I miss skiing holidays.
I fear that we won't realise just how much liberty we have lost until it is far, far too late and that a Conservative government will not have the guts to put things right.
I hear that Raymond has been drinking heavily again.
I wonder what this button does
I regret
not having got (or got for myself) a good grounding in Philosophy when at school, when I had both the time to read and access to the material (and teachers),
not having learnt to play a musical instrument as a child
I am not really that fierce in "real life" and don't really advocate the death penalty (Seuaaeuuameuaus notwithstanding - he badly needs his neck stretching )
I dance:
Scottish Reels with no persuasion needed, alacrity, gusto and style
everything else under duress
I sing far too loud, far too often and flaaaaaaaaaaaat.....
I cry when listening to certain unbearably beautiful passages of music, particularly this, this and this (and particularly "To Love Is to Bury" on that album).
I am not always so jolly and talkative
I make with my hands excellent paper aeroplanes
I write rather elegantly, even if I say so myself.
I confuse more or less everyone I meet.
I need 300 kilos of white mice! No time to explain! Seriously, if that's what it takes to keep material of this standard flowing, it is a very small price to pay.
I should:
organise my bank statements,
buy a gun cabinet,
re-write our wills,
work out how the hell we are going to pay for school fees or (failing that) give the boys the education that they deserve/need to allow them to be everything that I know they can be,
sort out the staggeringly large pile of boxes in the study.
pay a bit more into my pension
I start too fast, then fall apart after a couple of miles.
I finish very few of the things I start. Apart from su doku.

Wednesday 17 August 2011

African Penguin

The African Penguin is found on the south-western coast of Africa, living in colonies on 24 islands between Namibia and Algoa Bay, near Port Elizabeth, South Africa. It is also known as the Jackass Penguin for its donkey-like bray, although several species of South American penguins produce the same sound. It is the only penguin species that breeds in Africa and its presence gave name to the Penguin Islands.

Two colonies were established by penguins in the 1980s on the mainland near Cape Town, namely Boulders Beach near Simon's Town and Stony Point in Betty's Bay. Mainland colonies probably only became possible in recent times due to the reduction of predator numbers, although the Betty's Bay colony has been attacked by leopards. The only other mainland colony is in Namibia, but it is not known when this was established.

Boulders Beach is a tourist attraction, for the beach, swimming and the penguins. The penguins will allow people to approach them as close as a meter (three feet).