WHAT’S MORE ADORABLE THAN PHOTOS OF TWO EMPEROR PENGUINS? A “selfie” video taken by the penguins themselves.
Admittedly, I’m hardly the first to take it up – posted March 7th, it’s been featured on television news and print media around the world and the 38-second video has had more than 400,000 views – but, really, it’s irresistible.
JUST HAPPENED TO BE TURNED ON
Basically, two curious emperor penguins – the noble species featured in the 2005 film “March of the Penguins – approached a camera left turned on on the ice at a rookery near the Australian Antarctic Division’s Mawson Research Station on Antarctica’s east coast, made penguin noises and peered at it close up, wonderfully curious. It ends with them shaking their heads like two old-timers wondering what technology is coming to.
FIRST, BIG FAT FEET, THEN A FORTUNATE FLIP
The camera was left on the ice, recording, by AAD “expeditioner” Eddie Gault. The episode involves a great deal of luck, since it begins with closeup footage of the first bird’s big, fat feet, which apparently bumped it onto its back, pointing upward. After that, as a second penguin joins the first, it’s an iconic animal selfie.
The link embedded in the image above goes to the tweet posted by the Australian Antarctic Division.
PRINCIPAL SOURCES: Australian Antarctic Division, YouTube, National Public Radio, ABC News, Washington Post