Scientists record the world's longest penguin dive

Emperor penguins are excellent divers, and scientists in Antarctica have clocked the world's longest dive from the aquatic bird.

The tracked penguins managed to complete underwater dives as long as 32.2 minutes, eclipsing the previous record of 27.6 minutes. On average, emperor penguins dive for about three to six minutes.

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On average, the penguins dove 90.2 metres (98.64 yards) deep, but sometimes went as deep as 450 metres (492 yards). More than 96,000 dives were recorded, with most tags attached for at least six months.

The research was compiled by Kim Goetz, a marine ecologist at New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, and published in a paper.

Goetz tagged 20 penguins at Antarctica's Cape Colbeck in 2013 to conduct her findings, but it nearly didn't go to plan because of her team's late arrival.

"Our original goal was to tag breeding penguins at Cape Colbeck after their annual moult at the end of January. But because the voyage was delayed we didn’t get there until early March," she said in a statement.

"We didn't expect penguins to still be there and thought we would have to locate them on the pack ice which was going to be more difficult."

Fortunately, there managed to be a handful of adult penguins still hanging around at Cape Colbeck which were quickly tagged. The problem though, was these animals weren't breeding penguins as anticipated.

"If they were breeders, their tracks would have been a lot shorter and they would have returned to the breeding ground by early June but they didn’t. They kept foraging because they had no reason to go back," she said.

But that allowed Goetz and her team to survey the behaviour of adult emperor penguins after they leave breeding colonies, something which is little known about. 

It allowed the team to discover just how far these penguins go, heading into deeper waters to catch fish. Researchers thought they survived on krill, which lurks in shallower waters.

Goetz said the findings helped researchers understand how emperor penguins survive in the most extreme environmental conditions, which happens after they leave their breeding colonies in mid-December to mid-January.

"That’s why understanding their entire life cycle, especially when birds are not restrained by chick-rearing duties, is critical to predicting how emperor penguins might respond to environmental changes," she said.

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