Magellanic penguins (Spheniscus magellanicus) looking to save some energy on their 1,200-mile-long journeys may have tapped into using one of the ocean’s most dynamic forces for help. The sea birds can sense shifts in currents and use it to maximize their efficiency by alternating their travel routes. The findings are detailed in a study published July 17 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology.
“Magellanic penguins finding their way back to their nests from the open ocean subtly adjust their headings to exploit tidal currents, following paths that reduce energy costs while maintaining remarkable accuracy,” the study’s authors wrote in a statement. “Rather than swimming directly home, they drift laterally with the tides, balancing travel efficiency with opportunistic foraging along the way.”
Many animals have ways of using physics to their advantage while traveling. The famous “flying-V” formation in birds is believed to conserve energy and take advantage of a principle called drafting or slipstreaming. Also seen in human endurance sports like running and cycling, drafting can help athletes save time by following areas of low pressure created by the person ahead of them.
Marine animals can use a similar principle, but in the water with currents. Plankton and jellyfish are basically drafting right along with the current instead of swimming in it. Bigger animals like sea turtles and humpback whales also use currents to assist on their epic journeys.
[ Related: Turtles and penguins have a swimming sweet spot that reduces drag. ]
Magellanic penguins appear to be doing something similar. The birds travel long distances without any visual landmarks to find food and then go back to their colonies to feed their chicks. They may be sensing current drifts–or how the current is affecting their path forward. These roughly 10-pound sea birds are found around the Falkland Islands along the southern tip of South America, but some have been spotted as far away as Brazil, New Zealand, and the Antarctic Peninsula.
To see how penguins orient towards their colony and if they can sense current drifts researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany fitted 27 adult penguins at the San Lorenzo Magellanic penguin colony in Argentina with GPS and IMU loggers. IMU loggers measure forces around the body and movement. The team observed one foraging trip made by each penguin and then removed the devices. With the data, they analyzed the penguin’s dive profiles, directional headings, speeds, and durations, to model how the birds navigate under different current conditions.
They found that the penguins alternate between traveling in a direct route and going with the flow of the current. This flexibility can maximize their navigation efficiency. When in a calm current, the penguins maintained precise line-of-sight routes towards their colony. In stronger currents, the birds swam in the direction of the current flow. While swimming this way increased the travel distance, staying with the direction of the current saved some energy. Under strong currents, the penguins still generally aimed towards the colony, but may have altered their direction to compensate for the forces of the current. This suggests that the penguins are likely aware of the current drift in relation to their destination, even if the colony is out of sight.
“Such behavior is consistent with effective navigation even when out of sight of land,” the authors added. “This central finding is a valuable contribution to our understanding of navigation ability in marine animals.”
This particular study only looked at 27 penguins, so more research, a larger sample size, and looking at other species could help us gain more insight into penguin navigation and how they get around the big blue.
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