Do you ever wish you could just be a penguin — sliding in the snow, diving among the fish, and maybe occasionally getting embroiled in a brutal love triangle?
Whether or not you’ve ever had that oddly specific dream, you can now get a sneak peek into the penguin experience via “penguin cam:” footage from a special camera that researchers temporarily fitted on a foraging gentoo penguin in Argentina’s Beagle Channel.
“We attached the device just for one foraging trip, and upon the penguin’s return we unattached the device and monitored the breeding success of the nest,” Andrea Raya Rey, associate researcher at Wildlife Conservation Society Argentina, said in a news release. “The Gentoo continued with its parental duties and taking care of the offspring.”
The resulting video provides a penguin’s-eye-view of swimming straight into a large and presumably delicious school of sardines.
Gentoo penguins more typically hunt near the seafloor for creatures that include squid and crustaceans, ScienceAlert noted. But the video serves as evidence that they’ll also go for small fish swimming closer to the surface (like sardines) if the opportunity presents itself.
“We wrote in many papers that the seabird community in the Beagle Channel rely on sardines but this is the actual proof, and now it is confirmed and with a star behind the camera: the penguin,” said Raya Rey.
