Ancient Adelie penguin mummies found under melting snow

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As the world warms up, melting ice sheets across the globe are exposing everything from trapped methane gas to Viking remains.

Now a new discovery has been made in the receding snow packs: the remains of 800-year-old penguins.

Having discovered what initially appeared to be fresh Adélie penguin remains at Cape Irizar on the Antarctic coastline, researchers were surprised to discover that carbon-dating put the carcasses at a minimum of 800 years old.

Some of the less well-preserved remains even date back around 5,000 years, the team says. 

"Overall, our sampling recovered a mixture of old and what appeared to be recent penguin remains implying multiple periods of occupation and abandonment of this cape over thousands of years," says marine biologist behind the discovery Steven Emslie, from the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

"In all the years I have been doing this research in Antarctica, I've never seen a site quite like this."

Source: 1, 2

[Aleks 3,029]

I read “Ancient Adele penguin mummies...” and was so confused 

OT : I feel like for some reason we’ve had so many amazing things happening science-wise during lockdown... coincidence? Who knows.

Edited October 25, 2020 by Aleks

[homomo 17,473]

12 minutes ago, Aleks said:

I read “Ancient Adele penguin mummies...” and was so confused

That’s funny, cause I read “Ancient Alien penguin mummies”  

Edited October 25, 2020 by homomo

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2 hours ago, Aleks said:

I read “Ancient Adele penguin mummies...” and was so confused 

OT : I feel like for some reason we’ve had so many amazing things happening science-wise during lockdown... coincidence? Who knows.

Perhaps the lockdown gave us more free time and so allowed us to stay more in touch with the news  but I don't think the amount of discoveries really changed that much.  On the other hand, the lockdown really allowed scientists to study things that couldn't be studied otherwise so maybe.