'Supercolony' of Penguins Discovered on Antarctica's Danger Islands

Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution discovered a massive colony of over 1.5 million Adélie Penguins, a species previously thought to be on the decline, in Antarctica’s Danger Islands. Their study was released on March 2.

According to WHOI, researchers looking at NASA satellite images in 2014 spotted signs of guano in the area, which hadn’t been previously considered a particularly significant penguin habitat. In 2015 a team was sent to investigate, and, through the use of drones, they were able to observe a colony of over a million penguins living in the remote island chain. See the full press release here. Credit: Thomas Sayre McChord, Hanumant Singh, Northeastern University, © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution via Storyful