Researchers find emperor penguins outer feathers colder than surrounding air
Thursday, March 7, 2013 - 07:00
in Biology & Nature
(Phys.org) —A research team made up of members from France and the U.K. has discovered that when in cold temperatures, the outer feathers of the emperor penguin are actually colder than the surrounding air. As the team describes in their paper published in the journal Biology Letters, they discovered the unusual thermal properties of the penguin's feathers while studying the birds in their natural environment using infrared imaging.