You may think penguins all look the same, but you鈥檇 be wrong. A remote-controlled video camera on a South African island can identify individual birds from the arrangement of distinctive black plumage spots on their chests.
The camera 鈥� part of a system built by Tilo Burghardt and Peter Barham of the University of Bristol, UK 鈥� is hidden at ground level on a path the penguins use daily to reach the sea. If a bird鈥檚 chest is clearly visible, image analysis software generates a 2D map of the plumage spots. This can be compared with a database of stored maps to identify individual birds.
The technology is being tested on Robben Island, South Africa, home to some 20,000 African penguins. 鈥淭he identification rate is now about 98 per cent accurate,鈥� says Burghardt. (You can see a video of the system in action on the New 杏吧原创 website via .)
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The camera should snap every bird on the path at least once each month, helping researchers keep track of the endangered population without resorting to methods such as tagging that can distress or harm the penguins. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 realise how much you affect the birds just by going to within 100 metres of them,鈥� says Barham.
It should also be possible to track the behaviour of individual birds 鈥� for example, how male and female birds share chick-guarding and fishing duties. Barham thinks it may even be possible to judge how much a bird has eaten from the way the contents of its stomach stretch out its spots.
