
Pink penguin poop, to be exact.
While doing some research on animal feces (as I do), I found out that Adelié penguins in Antarctica have super stinky pink poop.
As with most creatures, humans included, you can blame it on their diet. Adelié penguins eat krill, those tiny pinkish-coloured crustaceans at the centre of the ocean food web. And they eat so much, that it turns their poo a pretty bright pink. Researchers say the penguin guano, which stains the surrounding snow, looks like “wet tuna salad”—and smells even worse.
And get this. You can even see it from space! Thankfully, the stench doesn’t travel quite that far.
But seriously. Satellites are monitoring the massive poo stains in the snow, and scientists are using the data to learn about size and location of the penguin colonies—and more.
So poop away, penguins. And we humans will keep studying it (but maybe from a safe distance where we can’t smell it).