Finally understand scientists why vrouwtjespinguïns massively beaches in South America

Animals Researchers from Japan and Argentina think a remarkable pinguïnmysterie to have fixed it. For years coils on the beaches of Northern Argentina, Uruguay and Southern Brazil, thousands of magelhaenpinguïns. Striking: of the dead beached penguins is three-quarters female. Their zwemroute explains the difference with the mortality rate of males.

a device attached to the legs of the animals, brought the researchers to the zwemroutes and zwemdieptes of individual penguins detailed in the map below. The penguins breed in south, in Argentina, Chile and the Falkland islands, but swimming every year to the north for food. The females, as is apparent from the research in Current Biology , seek their food further north and closer to the coast than the males. This northern area of Rio de La Plata, the sea-inlet of Buenos Aires – is dangerous for the animals. They encounter there earlier in polluted water, marine and fisheries. The researchers think that the penguins, which means less fish to be caught, become entangled in nets or caught accidentally.

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On the list of the IUCN, the penguins are listed as near threatened, the number of magelhaenpinguïns been running for years. That in particular females are death to wash up on the beaches to find the researchers worried, because the male/female ratio in the population, this skew can come to lie. Magelhaenpinguïns breed in pairs so for their survival is a healthy balance between the number of males and females is more important.

Females are diving less deep

the vrouwtjespinguïns north end, according to the researchers, because the females are smaller and lighter than the males, and therefore less deep-diving for food. They are looking for shallower water, closer to the polluted coast. In less deep water, they can their bodies are better at temperature. The females end up also more to the north because they are less able to swim than the males, making the flow them higher looking.

Interesting research, poolbioloog Maarten Loonen of the University of Groningen. “They have demonstrated that there is a difference in the distribution between males and females.” According to the associate professor of Arctic ecology, this phenomenon also in other species, such as ducks. Yet, according to him, it has not yet demonstrated that magelhaenpinguïns more females than males die. “May be males just as often, death, but further from the shore, their carcasses eaten by scavengers. An interesting follow-up research seems to me to be whether there are breeding colonies also are really more males than females.”