Category Archives: Uncategorized

Some of my favorite research to read on penguins are case studies because they provide a glimpse of how weird penguin behavior can get. Occasionally, a few penguins in a population might display a behavior they’re not supposed to do. In this case, a few African penguins began stealing one another’s nests, also known as nest usurpation, in response to extreme weather changes [1].  WhenContinue reading “Climate Related to Nest Stealing in African Penguin, Study Finds”

Hey readers! I know that reading too much about threats to an endangered species can sometimes make you feel helpless, so I thought I’d write a special lighthearted blog. Throwback Thursday goes back in time to examine ecological and behavioral research that remains relevant today.  In 1973 through 1976, researchers Eggleton and Siegfried traveled to islands off the South African coast to observe African penguins in their natural habitat. They composed an ethogram,Continue reading “Throwback Thursday: The Study that First Explored Penguin Behavior”

I’m always interested to see how penguins worldwide are faring, especially since it can be hard to determine which penguin species are most at risk. Most of the time, I live in an African penguin bubble, only researching similar species when I can’t find anything relevant to my own research.   However, I recently stumbled across a rare gem – the InternationalContinue reading “IUCN Names Most Vulnerable Penguin Species, Offers Conservation Solutions”

Why am I writing about Magellanic penguins from South America now instead of African penguins? For one thing, Magellanic penguins’ conservation status is near threatened, so we need to better understand them if we want to prevent further population declines. More importantly, African and Magellanic penguins are extremely close relatives, so research findings in one species may be applicable to the other.  In a recent study, researchersContinue reading “Sex Biased Survival Influences Magellanic Penguin Population”

Many of the blogs that I have posted before discussed the human influence on the decline of the African penguin population. So, imagine my surprise when I came across a study that examines the influence of natural predators on mainland African penguin colonies. For once, humans aren’t the villain in this study.  Instead, the bad guys areContinue reading “Study Seeks to Preserve African Penguins by Identifying Their Predators”

In my blog post last week, I said that the population of African penguins in Namibia is relatively stable compared to those in South Africa. However, that doesn’t mean that the Namibia population is immune from environmental stressors, like illness.  From mid-December 2018 to mid-February 2019, a devastating disease plagued the African penguin population on Halifax Island, Namibia. AlthoughContinue reading “Avian Influenza Impacts Namibia’s African Penguin Population”

As I’ve said in previous posts, there are only 20,850 breeding pairs of African penguins in the wild as of one month ago. That’s it. Three and a half years ago, when I first started my undergraduate research, that number was approximately 30,000. Where am I getting these numbers from? The latter comes from theContinue reading “Assessing the Decline of the Wild African Penguin Population”

Not all penguins in a relationship stay true to one another. There’s a lot of drama: I’ve seen a pair of “gay” penguins split after years of companionship, a divorce after the parents’ chicks grew up, and the occasional guilty penguin that allopreens someone other than its partner. But I’ve never seen anything as scandalousContinue reading “Maintaining African Penguin Pedigrees Not Straightforward, Study Finds”

Hi readers, my name is Morgan Blickley, and I am a senior student at Cedar Crest College. I am a double major in Biology and Writing with a minor in chemistry and a concentration in pre-veterinary medicine. This blog is part of an assignment for my Digital Journalism class.  So, why penguins? Well, African penguins are my research animal, so IContinue reading “About the Author”