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At the Rainbow’s End

April 17, 2018

No pot of gold, but a large colony of king penguins can be found at the end of this rainbow. Breeding pairs and individuals form very large and dense colonies like this one located on Ratmanoff, Kerguelen Archipelago. The species is threatened by climate change with warming temperatures shifting their main food sources farther south. A new study looked at how king penguins form and structure their colonies—and how colonies may depend on the physical features of new breeding grounds. Daniel Zitterbart, a physicist at WHOI and coauthor of the study, says those factors are crucial to predicting the resilience of king penguin colonies. (Photo courtesy of Céline Le Bohec, CNRS / IPEV / CSM)