Text written in Basque and translated automatically by Elia without any subsequent editing. SEE ORIGINAL

Among the penguins

When researching animals, one of the eternal problems is how to get as close as possible without frightening the animals or influencing their behavior. Remote-guided devices could be a good option, as some experiments carried out by researchers at the University of Strasbourg show. The results are published in Nature Methods.

In one of the experiments, 34 penguin kings were fitted with cardiac rhythm measuring devices. The information from these meters could be read by approaching an antenna. This antenna was placed in a small remotely controlled vehicle and embedded in the penguin colony in the vehicle, they observed that the pulse of the penguins accelerated less and recovered more quickly than when this task was performed by people.

In another experiment, the vehicle was disguised as a penguin chick to approach more horrible penguin emperors. As you can see from the photos, the masked vehicle was well accepted by the penguin emperors, and some chicks and adults even tried to communicate with it.

Finally, the first tests with marine elephants have also managed to reach the side of the animals without disturbing them. Researchers say that it is impossible for a person to do this. Thus, they conclude that remotely controlled vehicles can be a good option for investigating these or other species.