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.

Comments

Why is it so hard to believe?

[meckardt]

I've seen little kids do it... if they can, why not a pinguin?

Must see...

[pnevares]

You can't read this story without watching the BBC's animated GIF that was linked to it earlier today...

http:// new s.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1000000/images/_1003469_pengui ns_supuf.gif

Pablo Nevares, "the freshmaker".

This is an Urban Legend folks

[CokeBear]

This urban legend surfaces from time to time. It is debunked here

Re:This is an Urban Legend folks

[Col. Klink (retired)]

But note that snopes did say that the Brits sent a study team...

Wow, that's interesting. I had not heard about the Brits doing a study! I wonder where I could learn more about such a study...

...ok, I'm back, and after my exhaustive search, I've found an article about the British study. You can read all about it herehere ;.

Re:A cartoon started this?

[ptbrown]

Outland wasn't a "horrible rip off". It was a diversion from BC because Berke Breathed was tired of doing a daily.

And here's the original strip we were talking about.

My Penguin Experiences

[nihilogos]

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.

Re:Tho anals of science

[radja]

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