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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Penguin post office (1 Viewer)

JTweedie

Well-known member
Natural World programme from the Antarctic peninsula. Focussing on the gentoo penguins and the people who work in and visit the world's southern most post office.

Worth a watch.
 
Did you see that they filmed a baby Penquin being attacked right by the huts and it was killed by the adult Penquins and then its brother came and laid down beside it,mourning. They had wandered too far and that was why it was killed. Yes, it was nature but the poor little thing and the brothers had gone round everywhere together.
 
Did you see that they filmed a baby Penquin being attacked right by the huts and it was killed by the adult Penquins and then its brother came and laid down beside it,mourning. They had wandered too far and that was why it was killed. Yes, it was nature but the poor little thing and the brothers had gone round everywhere together.

You are going too far by attributing the mourning idea to it. It had always gone round with its sibling and didn't know what to do except stay with them. You should not anthropomorphise. (Its OK to have emotion yourself.)

Killing of wandering young by non-parental adults removes any possibility of the wandering being passed on genetically. It ensures only young that will stay near parents survive to breed. The species continues.

John
 
The word 'mourning' was the commentators word.

I beg your pardon, then - although you did repeat it uncritically ;)

There is a good deal of evidence for mourning in higher mammals, which is perhaps unsurprising. There is less for smaller mammals - particularly those with a high turn-over such as rodents and insectivores probably don't have time to form deep relationships.

In other groups the evidence is less compelling. Some birds form long-term relationships (e.g. eagles) but in most of those evidence of grief is lacking. Perhaps there is another factor at work, such as a requirement not just for personal relationships but a social structure. Grief symptoms (by which I mean not staying with a corpse of a known associate but showing persistent displays analogous to those of mammals, after the physical remains are gone) have been reported in geese. I have to admit this is too deep for me, but my doubts remain even after a quick bit of googling showed there is a case to answer.

John
 
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