UNCW professor discovers penguin remains in Antarctica, published in scientific journal

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — A UNCW biology professor shared an exciting discovery he made while studying penguin paleo history and climate change in Antarctica.

After several years of testing, analysis and radio carbon dating, his findings have been published in the scientific journal, Geology.

“At first, I didn’t know what we had, because when you’re on the ground there and finding bones that look fresh, I thought, ‘Well, when we get back we’ll just have to look into the site some more,'” UNCW Biology Professor Steven Emslie said.

It turns out, what Emslie found was something new, and never before seen on the land in Antarctica.

“We had gone to this site just at the end of a field season, just because we had an extra day, and we really didn’t expect to find much,” Emslie said. “We had heard reports of penguin remains from that area, where no penguins occur today.”

Emslie has been trekking to Antarctica and the Ross Sea for decades. Since his first trip in 1991, he’s been going back ever since to study climate change and penguin paleo history.

On a trip in 2016, he struck an unexpected jackpot.

“So I started finding all these penguin bones on the surface that looked like a colony had been active there recently, and it has a very distinct appearance of the bones being fresh looking, and feathers on the ground and even guano looking fresh on the ground,” he said. “And I thought, ‘Well this is strange, because nobody’s ever reported a colony here.”

Emslie says these types of remains have been found from glacial melts in Europe and North America, but never in Antarctica. Over the years, he says he’s seen glaciers retreat hundreds of meters, and says climate change has started to impact the northern and southern portions of the continent.

“I noticed a lot of these bones coming out from melted snow banks and from under the ice and snow,” Emslie said. “So I looked at satellite imagery for the last few years, and saw this had only recently been exposed by a snow melt, and just put two and two together that this colony was abandoned over 800 years ago, the last time it was occupied.”

With his findings, Emslie says they can predict the future of these penguins and their behaviors.

“And that, in turn, can help recognize areas where they’re going to be depending on they’re foraging,” he said. “They can be protected more. And just racking their movements. Where they establish new colonies. Where they abandon others.”

Emslie says he’s applied for a new research grant through the National Science Foundation to continue his work down in Antarctica, and hopes to partner with tour ships to have people from the public join his research.