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Do Penguins Topple When Planes Fly Over?
dannyspanner was among the teeming masses to point out that: "The BBC has a short story about some research that will be carried out to see if penguin colonies fall over when aircraft fly overhead. I hope they get some footage if they prove it's true ..." I secretly believe that news outlets like stories like this because penguins look so comical already -- thinking of them rolling around like duckpins (rather than the ultra-coordinated hero of Tuxracer) makes everybody laugh.
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/bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
I've seen little kids do it... if they can, why not a pinguin?
It's www.tuxracer.com, foo.
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I can remember an old "Outland" cartoon, feat. Opus the penguin telling a story about how the most silly sight on earth: was "4000 penguins staring at the sky, watching the planes go left, right and slowly 4000 penguins falled on their backs when the planes flew overhead." This was in 1985 or something...
A non-borken link to Tuxracer: http://tuxracer.sourceforge.net ;
Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphized. -AC
You can't read this story without watching the BBC's animated GIF that was linked to it earlier today...
i ns_supuf.gif
http:// new s.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1000000/images/_1003469_pengu
Pablo Nevares, "the freshmaker".
Pablo Nevares, "the freshmaker".
That reminds me of a sociological reasearch that concluded the amazing fact that 50% of divorcees in Israel's kibutz are women.
I assume that somewhere in late October scientists with unused annual grants panick. There should be a journal for such researh:
how about:
THe Journal of "Pure" Science
international Sqanderer
Laughingstock Quarterly
Eyebrow Raiser Almanac
-- look, cheese ahoy!
Only those who dream can grasp reality.
This urban legend surfaces from time to time. It is debunked here
Reality has a liberal bias
I once spoke with one of my father's friends when I was visiting him, and she told me that when she was stopping over in the Falklands on her way to Antartica, and she told me that one of the most amazing things that she ever saw was when thousands of penguins fell over when watching harriers on manuvers. I remember that a few years back about some enviromentalists went down there and threw a hissy fit about it all. I don't remember what came about of it.
http://www.urbanlegends.com/animals/penguins_fall_ over.html
With a explanation what really happens when fighter jets fly over a penguin colony...
This is the definitive site for debunking urban legends...
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
From: snyary@life.timeinc.com (Sasha Nyary )
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Penguins in the Falklands
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 18:06:13 -0500
I didn't see this on the UL Website, and I don't read this newsgroup often, so forgive me if this story is an old one. I recently got taken in by it and thought it was worth sharing. It's a great yarn -- too bad it's not true.
Here's the story, followed by the rebuttal:
Penguins and Pilots (supposedly from the Audubon Society magazine)
A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new game. Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly along it at the water's edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match. Then, the paper reports, "The pilots fly out to sea and return directly toward the penguin colony and over-fly it. Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins fall over gently onto their backs."
Captain Claire Lucas, RAF public relations officer in the Falkland Islands:
According to Captain Lucas, who laughed and said this is a great story but not true, this is one of those legendary tales that gets passed around and resurfaces periodically. She's heard the story before. She says the Penguins actually hate the noise and scatter as the planes approach the beach.
LeoC - posting as an AC because /. doesn't let me login anymore.
Also knew someone who died when HMS Sheffield sank out there:( Just bought back the memory:(
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..Next time you are near penguins.. (for most of us that'd be at your friendly neighborhood zoo) Try reflecting some sunlight off of your watch or a small mirror - Its like remote control, the penguins will follow the spot of light wherever it goes.. Perhaps it looks like a tasty flashing fish. Whatever the reason, I wouldn't find it hard to believe that they would be as mesmerized by a jet flying overhead.
air and light and time and space
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
Carousel is a lie!
It was pretty much supersceded by the Annals of Improbable Research . They're the folks responsible for the Ig Noble awards.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
If the penguins do fall over, are they going to run the results of their reasearch through ksymoops to find out why ?
So why is that such a big deal? Who cares if a couple of penguins fall over due to the odd passing plane? They live in such remote locations, the small amount of air traffic surely has minimal ecological impact. The problem is, places where penguins congregate are rapidly becoming commercially viable tourism destinations. There are a number of commercial airlines operating regular flights over the antarctic for example. The increase in air traffic may well pose an ecological threat, even if they don't land. The research is directly trying to ascertain whether or not we should place limits on such commercial activity.
All we have to go on at the moment is rumour, labelled by some here as urban myth. The tourism industry certainly won't take any notice of that sort of thing. What they might pay attention to is rigorous scientific evidence which points to the ecological impact of tourist activities in these fairly fragile environments. God knows they probably won't even take notice of that (eg tobacco industry's relationship with the scientific community), but it at least provides grounds for governments to put in place regulations. The situation we have at the moment, of conjecture and rumour, does not allow for any of that to happen. Who knows? We might even find out that there are no grounds to the speculation at all - I wouldn't mind taking a holiday to Antarctica...
but I have experimentally confirmed that penguins fall over when you pass over them with a skidoo.
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I visited some penguin colonies on the Antarctic penisula over christmas 1998. Penguins are often portrayed as awkward and clumsy but seeing them in *that* environment is something else - they swim at about 15-20 knots and are just by far the most widespread of all the creatures down there.
Anyway some of the colonies were about 50000+ birds, just a huge crown of penguins. It was chick hatching season, and all the birds were sitting on their eggs/chicks. When skuas (agressive antarctic bird of prey - huge attitudes) swooped over the colony all the nesting penguins would crouch over their eggs and young like a mexican wave.
They'd probably do the same for planes.
:wq
Well, there is a slightly better debunking in
the 'Debunked here too' message, but if you
believe the original one, then you're just as
guilty of believing anything you read on the
Internet as those who believe that penguins do
this.
The strongest argument the referenced document
offers it that people overanthropomorphise things.
The strongest words used are 'there isn't much
reason to believe it'.
I'll need a better debunking than that. I mean,
I don't categorically believe that it *does*
happen; but this sure as hell isn't proof that it
doesn't.
So that's why they fall over! To mate! You genius, you've single handedly explained the whole phenomenon!
It's a good thing you posted, otherwise they might have stopped lettings planes fly over, which would put penguins at risk of never getting laid again. I doubt penguins could adjust to that as easily as you have.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
I spent a fair bit of my childhood in the Falklands, and with a mad keen ornithologist for a father there was much time spent in the penguin colonies getting bitten by their fleas.
Two things-
penguins rarely bother looking up. They have very few predators from the sky (the local turkey buzzards will grab eggs and sickly young)
The noise of jets and helicopters spooks them so they leg it
Amusingly though, back in the days right after the conflict, a C130 hercules flanked by two F4 phantoms used to do the Christmas mail run round the settlements. They'd come in at under 50 feet, phantoms just above stall speed and hercules batting it's little engines out and pull up over each settlement to drop mail and presents.
The sudden noise used to make everyone fall over. As a young teenager I loved it:)
Frog51
Here is a picture of a skua over the Gentoo Penguin colony at Port Lockroy in the Antarctic Peninsula. Of course, the pic is better for the skua than the penguins but you can also check out some of the other shots too!
Who would believe in penguins,unless he had seen them? Conor O Brien - Across Three Oceans
there's ofcxourse the Ig-Nobel awards. this year a dutch guy won for a couple of porn-pics in an MRI machine, to determine the shape of the human penis during copulation. The guy is now trying to get a grant to determine the shape and size of the clitoris, which could benefit a lot of men.. ;)
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
We (as in, in the office) reckon that what is actually happening is that an RAF team are going out to research the stress caused by aircraft to penguins. If they leg it, they are obviously stressed, and could end up abondoning eggs, etc. and therefore it's a worthy piece of research.
The story about them falling over has been added by somebody in a news agency somewhere who had heard the story from a "friend of a friend", or possibly the research team have heard the story and believe it.
Fly a helicopter slowly towards the beach, just high enough for the little darlings to not scatter and they will indeed watch it until they topple over backwards.
Just because one PR officer says it aint so, doesn't mean that those who have actually seen it are lying. Apparently it is quite hysterical (and it is sheep, not penguins that can't get up when they fall on their backs).
--- Four bases should be enough for any genetic code
You should hear BillG giggle when gets L. Tovald
to fall on his back in the parking lot.