ABOVE: Gentoo penguins (with red beaks, left) and chinstrap penguin (with white face, center)
RACHAEL HERMAN
Animals with specialized diets—such as chinstrap penguins, which only eat krill—could be more sensitive to the effects of human activities than those that eat a wider variety of foods, according to a study published yesterday (December 2) in PNAS.
Chinstrap penguins (Pygoscelis antarcticus) and gentoo penguins (P. papua) both live in the Antarctic Peninsula region of Antarctica, but the two species have different eating habits. While chinstraps exclusively eat krill, gentoos are generalists that can also eat fish and squid. Researchers led by Michael Polito of Louisiana State University analyzed amino acids in the penguin feathers of both species collected in the 1930s, 1960s, 1980s, and 2010s and found that while gentoos mainly ate krill in the 1930s, their diet has widened over the past several decades to include fish and squid. Meanwhile, chinstraps have ...
