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A penguin making an "ecstatic call".

A penguin making an "ecstatic call".
A penguin making an "ecstatic call".
A penguin making an "ecstatic call".
A penguin making an "ecstatic call".
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131642
Linder, Christopher L.
A penguin making an "ecstatic call".
Still Image
12/03/2007
graphics/pd3-1/cl_20071203_antarctica_adeliepenguins_071.jpg
Image of The Day caption:
To call his mate, a male Adélie penguin uses a tried-and-true formula: flap flippers, tilt head to sky, then cut lose with a braying screech of a love song. It's called an ecstatic call, and among penguins, it's contagious. One starts, and pretty soon everyone's doing it, said ecologist David Ainley. Ainley, who studies Adélie colonies in Antarctica, worked with a reporting team from WHOI during a 2007 Polar Discovery expedition at Cape Royds on Ross Island. (Note that this penguin is multi-tasking: while calling, he is also incubating an egg.)
An Adelie penguin flaps its flippers, leans back its head, and groans at the sky. It's called the "ecstatic call," and it's usually given by a male hoping to entice its mate. The call starts out with the bird's head slightly raised, beginning to flap its wings. As the flapping accelerates, a faint, guttural thumping starts in the bird's chest. The penguin picks up the sound in its throat, then points its beak straight upward and cuts loose with a braying screech of a love song. "It's contagious," Ainley told me when we saw it two weeks ago. "One starts, and pretty soon everyone's doing it." With luck, we'll be hearing these dulcet tones again tomorrow, at Cape Crozier.
Photo by Chris Linder
© Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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