We need to get back to the scientific basics here: animals stickin’ it in weird and wild holes.
Today’s Moment of Science… Perverted Penguins.
It’s unclear when the first human really set foot on Antarctica. Though American seal hunter John Davis claimed to have done so in February of 1821, it would be disingenuous to say he discovered the continent. In 1819 an English expedition spotted Antarctic islands, and in 1820 a Russian expedition claimed the first known sighting of the mainland in modern times.
However, Antarctica still suffered from being in the Antarctic, so navigating through jesus tapdancing christ cold waters was fuck you levels of nope. After a relatively successful trip by British explorers in the 1840s, their general takeaway was “meh, no science here, could your majesties do a colonialism somewhere warmer?”
The globe started running low on islands to “discover,” and somewhere colder would have to do. More exploratory missions started going out in the 1890s, and the first permanent base- a meteorological observatory- was set up just past the turn of the twentieth century.
Captain Robert Falcon Scott was leading the Terra Nova Expedition from 1910 to 1913. It was a multi-pronged scientific venture with plans for exploration and research for teams working on the sixty-five member crew.
One of the scientists on the trip was George Murray Levick, a naval surgeon who took a leave of absence to go exploring. Levick spent eleven months on Cape Adare, including spending winter in an ice cave because jesus fucking christ this guy. He poured about three months into observing the Adélie penguins, observing their entire mating and breeding season. From this he produced two works, one for general audiences and one intended for scientists.
The latter was never published.
Not to kink shame, but the Adélie penguins know what they’ve done and they need to goddamn apologize.
He observed what he called “hooligan cocks,” i.e. unpaired male penguins, acting with “astonishing depravity.” They weren’t picky either. Dead penguins, both male and female, could make for a convenient hole. A parent had to watch the young at all times because the sexual WTFery of these single males could kill a chick. Injured female? Not only would they take advantage of that, they’d fight over who got to take advantage of that.
“There seems to be no crime too low for these penguins,” Levick wrote.
I never considered the possibility that observational research into the mating habits of birds would be too hot for the scientific establishment, but behold these fuckers.
In order to preserve his work, Levick saw fit to write about it using the Greek alphabet. Note, I didn’t say he wrote it in Greek. He used the Greek alphabet, but the language was English to disguise the scientific records from prying eyes.
A hundred years later, George Levick’s observations on penguins have been uncovered, further researched, validated, and built upon.
With a smidge of penguin necrophilia, Levick still made out better than his captain. Scott had big plans for the expedition: make it to the South Pole first. But Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his crew made it on December 14th, 1911. Captain Scott arrived 33 days later, defeated. With morale running low and a mission that was already going poorly, their attempt to get home went even worse. The entire team of five perished two months later due to hypothermia and starvation. They were eleven miles from safety.
This has been your Moment of Science, super glad they left some shit out of Happy Feet.
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