Emperor Penguins Counted From Space

HairyNevus writes "An international team of scientists used satellite technology to conduct a census of emperor penguin populations from outer space. Honing in on their colonies by looking for the brown patches of penguin guano that stand out in the snowy antarctic, high resolution images were taken and used to count the total number of emperor penguin species on the continent. The result was a census of 595,000 penguins, almost double the previous estimates of 270,000-350,000 emperors. This includes seven new colonies which had not been previously identified. Although this is uplifting data, computer modeling still shows that loss of ice flows in the northern reaches could result in problems for the penguins."

Comments

I couldn't help it

[Grayhand]

I got this picture of a Google Earth car driving through a group of penguins.

Count Them From Orbit

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the only way to be sure.

How do they know?

[loftwyr]

An international team of scientists used satellite technology to conduct a census of emperor penguin populations from outer space

How do you tell which ones are from outer space?