Penguins Stuck In Infinite Loop

mjd writes "All dressed up and nowhere to swim! ABC News reports that "the penguin pool at the San Francisco Zoo has been a daily frenzy of circle swimming by all of the 52 birds at once. The penguins start swimming in circles early in the day and rarely stop until they stagger out of the pool at dusk.""

Comments

2.4.42.pre1

[wowbagger]

"Alright, who loaded a prepatch kernel on the penguins?!"

Seriously, consider this strange behavior observed in certain primates: They spend hours swimming back and forth in pools of water, lifting heavy weights only to put them down again, until muscular exhaustion, running for hours in place, and pulling clumps of hair from their bodies with resinous substances. Obviously, they must be deranged.

Or health fanatics.

Consider: the penguins would normally spend all day swimming to catch fish. Now, they don't have to - fish are provided with no effort. But some part of the penguin's brain is telling it to swim, so swim they do.

Have you ever watched any other captive animal? Horses will gallop across the field for no visible reason, dogs will run around the back yard, cats will suddenly run full tilt from room to room.

Boredom can make animals do strange things.

Want more proof??

Did anyone read the date on this story?

[nosferatu-man]

January 16, 2003?

It's a cool story, but about six months late, eh?

'jfb