LONDON: Emperor penguins are somewhat heavyweights within their own species they are the largest living animals of this type and have adapted completely to surviving within the confines of the Earth’s coldest areas. But a recent study published in the Global Change Biology journal shows that the viciousness of climatic change – more specifically the Last Ice Age – nearly drove even these cold-hardened survivors to extinction.
This conclusion was reached by team of researchers comprised of scientists from the Australian Antarctic Division and the universities of Southampton, Oxford and Tasmania that have studied DNA samples extracted from 600 year old carcasses of emperor penguins frozen in Antarctica’s Ross Sea.
By examining the genetic diversity found in the samples and comparing it to that of modern penguin populations, the researchers estimate that there are 7 times more emperor penguins than at the time of the last glacial period, which ended about 12.000 years age.
Moreover, it seems that only three populations of today’s largest penguins were able to withstand the extreme conditions of the period, even though they are known survive temperatures as low as -22 degrees Fahrenheit . By comparison, there are more than 50 breeding colonies of emperor penguins today in Antarctica’s Ross Sea.
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