Penguin colony found from space

A new emperor penguin colony has been discovered in Antarctica using satellite mapping technology, scientists have said.

The colony, announced to mark Penguin Awareness Day, brings the total number of known emperor penguin breeding sites around the coastline of Antarctica to 66, the British Antarctic Survey said.

The site – identified by guano (droppings), which leaves stains that are easy to spot against the snow and rock – is at Verleger Point, West Antarctica, and has around 500 birds.

The scientists studied images from the European Commission’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite which were compared to and confirmed by high resolution images from the MAXAR Worldview3 satellite.

Dr Peter Fretwell, lead author of the research, said that while the find was “exciting”, the colony is small and in a region badly affected by sea ice loss.*