Antarctic researchers discovered four new colonies of the near-threatened emperor penguin species via satellite images of the birds' poop Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket/Getty Penguin poop that is ...

The new colonies Fretwell identified are mostly small. And at least some of the penguins appear to have moved because of unstable sea-ice conditions, he said in the article in Antarctic Science.

If confirmed, the discovery would bring the total known emperor penguin colonies to 66, Fretwell wrote. He added there are “inherent difficulties in determining what constitutes a new or ...

In one study, however, scientists spotted some new colonies of Emperor penguins, not with a piece of distant camera equipment or a pair of binoculars, but by “spotting their brown-colored poop ...