There’s a cute penguin chick rolling around the ice of Antarctica. Sitting atop a remote-controlled rover, the fake chick is being used to “spy” on the penguin population. Emperor penguins are “notoriously shy.” Researchers are using the “spy” penguin to gather data about penguins hopefully without frightening them off – “or worse, affecting the birds’ behavior and tainting the collected data.”
Recently, the Emperor penguins have taken to singing to the fake penguin. “Next time we will have a rover playing songs,” said Yvon Le Maho of the University of Strasbourg in France.