Penguins

SYDNEY: Two male penguins entrusted with the care of a fostered egg have welcomed a tiny sub-Antarctic Gentoo chick into the world, Sydney’s Sea Life Aquarium said on Friday. The pair, Magic and Sphen, made headlines around the world this month when aquarium staff gave them the egg, following a successful trial with a dummy egg. The yet-to-be-named chick, weighing 91 gm (3.21 oz), was born on the evening of Oct. 19 and is the first sub-Antarctic penguin born at the aquarium. The couple, who formed a bond before the…

ANTARCTICA: A thriving hotspot of some 1.5 million Adelie penguins has been discovered on the remote Danger Islands in the east Antarctic, surprised scientists announced Friday. Just 160 kilometres (100 miles) away in the west Antarctic, the same species is in decline due to sea ice melt blamed on global warming, they said. The first complete census revealed that the Danger Islands host more than 750,000 breeding pairs of Adelie penguins, more than the rest of the Antarctic Peninsula region combined, the team reported…

A decade ago, a thick layer of ice covered the Collins Glacier on Antarctica's King George Island. Now, the rocky landscape is visible to the naked eye, in a region that is both a victim of and a laboratory for climate change. "I had the opportunity to come here over a 15-year period, and even within a human's lifetime, you can already see the changes brought about by climate change," the director of the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH), Marcelo Leppe, told AFP. Observers can now see "rocks that we weren't seeing…

PARIS: Global warming is on track to wipe out 70 percent of the world's King penguins by century's end, putting the regal birds on a path towards extinction, researchers warned on Monday. As climate change drives away the fish and squid upon which the flightless creatures depend, the penguins must swim further afield to find sustenance for their hungry hatchlings on land. "For most colonies, the length of the summer trips by parents to get food will soon become so long that their offspring could starve while waiting,"…

MIAMI: Birds use essentially the same genes to sing as humans do to speak. And flamingos are more closely related to pigeons than they are to pelicans.

Dreamworks Animation's latest film, "Penguins of Madagascar," opened below expectations over the Thanksgiving weekend.

NEW YORK: "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1," the third film in the dystopian action series starring Jennifer Lawrence, collected $56.9 million to hold off advances by animated films "Penguins of Madagascar" and "Big Hero 6" and claim victory at the U.S. holiday weekend box office.