To avoid being bullied when they have to cross breeding colonies, king
penguins try to avoid walking near alert birds and instead sneak past sleeping
ones.
Breeding king penguins are aggressive birds, spending up to a fifth of their
time fighting to defend their half-metre-square territories. While studying
colonies on Possession Island in Antarctica, Steeve C么t茅 of
France鈥檚 national agency for scientific research (CNRS) in Strasbourg and
G茅rard Dewasmes of the Picardie Jules Verne University in Amiens found
that the penguins avoided aggression by plotting a course past dozing birds when
crossing the colony (PolarBiology, vol 22, p 13). 鈥淧enguins actively
chose to walk beside sleepers,鈥� says C么t茅.